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ESSAYS 



IN A 



SERIES OF LETTERS. 



FOSl 



r JOHN FOSTER, 

AUTHOR OF AN ESSAY ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 



FIRST AMERICAN, FROM THE EIGHTEENTH LONDON EDITIOK. 



NEW YORK: 

ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 

No. 285 BROADWAY. 

1850. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



Perhaps it will be tliought that pieces written so 
much in the manner of set compositions as the follow- 
ing, should not have been denominated Letters ; it 
may therefore be proper to say, that they are so called 
because they were actually addressed to a friend. 
They were written however with an intention to put 
them in print, if, when they were finished, the writer 
could persuade himself that they deserved it ; and 
the temper of even the most inconsiderable pretenders 
to literature in these times is too well known for any 
one to be surprised that he could so persuade himself. 

When he began these letters, his intention was to 
confine himself within such limits, that essays on 
twelve or fifteen subjects might be comprised in a vol- 
ume. But he soon found that so narrow a space 
would exclude many illustrations not less appropriate 
or useful than any which would be introduced. 

It will not seem a very natural manner of com- 
mencing a course of letters to a friend, to enter for- 
mally on a subject in the first sentence. In excuse 
for this abruptness it may be mentioned, that there 
was an introductory letter ; but as it was written in 
the presumption that a considerable variety of subjects 
would be treated in the compass of 'a moderate number 
of letters, it is omitted, as not being adapted to preced , 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

what is executed in a manner so different from the 
design. 

When writing which has occupied a considerable 
length, and has been interrupted by considerable in- 
tervals, of time, which is also on very different sub- 
jects, and was perhaps meditated under the influence 
of different circumstances, is at last all gone over in 
one short course of perusal, this immediate succession 
and close comparison make the writer sensible of some 
things of which he was not aware in the slow sepa- 
rate stages of the progress. On thus bringing the fol- 
lowing essays under one review, the writer perceives 
some reason to apprehend, that the spirit of the third 
may appear so different from that of the second, as to 
give an impression of something like inconsistency. 
The second may be thought to have an appearance of 
representing that a man may effect almost every thing, 
the third that he can effect scarcely any thing. But 
.the writer would say, that the one does not assert the 
efficacy of human resolution and effort under the same 
conditions under which the other asserts their ineffi- 
cacy ; and that therefore there is no real contrariety 
between the principles of the two essays. From the 
evidence of history and familiar experience we know 
that, under certain conditions, and within certain limits, 
(strait ones indeed,) an enlightened and resolute hu- 
man spirit has great power, this greatness being rela- 
tive to the measures of things within a small sphere ; 
while it is equally obvious that this enlightened and 
resolute spirit, if disregarding these conditions, and at- 
tempting to extend its agency over a much wider 
sphere, shall find its power baffled and annihilated, till 
it draws back within the boundary. Now the great 



ADVERTISEMENT. V 

power of the human mmd within the narrow limit be- 
ing forcibly and largely insisted on at one time, and 
its impotence beyond that limit, at another, the assem- 
blage of sentiments and exemplifications most adapted 
to illustrate, (and without real or considerable exagge- 
ration,) that power alone, will form apparently so 
strong a contrast with the assemblage of thoughts and 
facts proper for illustrating that imbecility alone, that 
on a superficial view the two representations may ap- 
pear contradictory. The author appeals to the expe- 
rience of such thinking men as are accustomed to 
commit their thoughts to writing, whether sometimes, 
on comparing the pages in which they had endeav- 
oured to place one truth in the strongest light, with 
those in which they have endeavoured a strong but yet 
not extravagant exhibition of another, they have not 
felt a momentary difficulty to reconcile them, even 
while satisfied of the substantial justness of both. The 
whole doctrine on any extensive moral subject neces- 
sarily includes two views which may be considered as 
its extremes ; and if these are strongly stated quite 
apart from their relations to each other, both the rep- 
resentations may be perfectly true, and yet may re- 
quire, in order to the reader's perceiving their con- 
sistency, a recollection of many intermediate ideas. 

In the fourth essay, it was not intended to take a 
comprehensive or systematic view of the causes con- 
tributing to prevent the candid attention and the cor- 
dial admission due to evangelical religion, but simply 
to select a few which had particularly attracted the 
writer's observation. One or two more would have 
been specified and slightly illustrated, if the essay had 
not been already too long. 



ADVERTISEMENT 
TO THE NINTH EDITION. 



As it is signified in the title-page that the book is 
corrected in this edition, it may not be impertinent to 
indicate by a few sentences the nature and amount of 
the correction. After a revisal which introduced a 
number of small verbal alterations in one of the later 
of the preceding editions, the writer had been willing 
to believe himself excused from any repetition of that 
kind of task. But when it was becoming probable 
that the new edition now printed would be called for, 
an acute literary friend strongly recommended one 
more and a final revisal ; enforcing his recommenda- 
tion by pointing out, in various places, what the writer 
readily acknowledged to be faults in the composition. 
This determined him to try the effect of a careful in- 
spection throughout with a view to such an abatement 
of the imperfections of the book, as might make him 
decidedly content to let it go without any future re- 
vision. 

In this operation there has been no attempt at nov- 
elty beyond such slight changes and diminutive ad- 
ditions as appeared necessary in order to give a more 
exact or full expression of the sense. There is not, 
probably, more of any thing that could properly be 



ADVERTISEMENT TO THE NINTH EDITION. Vll 

called new, than might be contained in half-a-dozen 
pages. Correction, in the strict sense, has been the 
object. Sentences, of ill-ordered construction, or loose 
or inconsequential in their connexion, have been at- 
tempted to be reformed. In some instances a sentence 
has been abbreviated, in others a little extended by 
the insertion of an explanatory or qualifying clause. 
Here and there a sentence has been substituted for one 
that was not easily reducible to the exact direction of 
the line of thought, or appeared feeble in expression. 
In several instances some modification has been re- 
quired to obviate a seeming or real inconsistency with 
what is said in other places. This part of the process 
may have taken off in such instances somewhat of the 
cast of force and spirit, exhibited or attempted in the 
former mode of expression ; and might have been ob- 
jected to as a deterioration, by a person not aware of 
the reason for the change. Here and there an epithet, 
or a combination of words, bordering on extravagance, 
has yielded to the dictate of the maturer judgment, or 
more fastidious taste, or less stimulated feelings, of 
advanced life, and given place to a somewhat mode- 
rated language. The general course of thought is 
not aifected by these minute alterations : except that, 
(as the writer would persuade himself,) it is in parts a 
little more distinctly and palpably brought out. The 
endeavour has been to disperse any mists that appeared 
to lie on the pages, that the ideas might present them- 
selves in as defined a form as the writer could give to 
any of them which had seemed obscure, and ineffec- 
tive to their object, from the indeterminate or involved 
enunciation. In the revised diction, as in the original 
writing, he has designedly and constantly avoided 



Vlll ADVEP».TISEMENT TO THE NINTH EDITION. 

certain artificial forms of phraseology, much in con- 
ventional use among even good writers ; and aimed at 
falling on the words most immediately, naturally, and 
simply appropriate to the thoughts. 

If his book be of a quality to impart any useful 
instruction, he will hope that the benefit may be con- 
veyed with perhaps a little more clearness and facility, 
in consequence of these last corrections it will receive 
from his hand. 

January, 1830. 



CONTENTS 



ESSAY I 



ON A MAN S WRITING MEMOIRS OF HIMSELP. 

LETTER I. 

Affectionate interest with which we revert to our past life— It deserves a 
brief record for our own use — Very few things to be noted of the multitude 
that have occurred— Direction and use of such a review as would be re- 
quired for writing a memoir — Importance of our past life considered as 
the beginning of an endless duration of existence — General deficiency of 
self-observation — Oblivion of the greatest number of our past feelings — 
Occasional glimpses of vivid recollection— Associations with things and 
places — The different and unknown associations of different persons with 
the same places ... . . Page 17 

LETTER II. 

All past life an education — Discipline and influence from — direct instruc- 
tion—companionship—books—scenes of nature— and the state of so- 
ciety p. 25 

LETTER III. 

Very powerful impressions sometimes from particular facts, tending to form 
discriminated characters — Yet very few strongly discriminated and indi- 
vidual characters found — Most persons belong to general classes of char- 
actor — Immense number and diversity of impressions, of indefinitely 
various tendency, which the moral being has undergone in the course of 
life — Might be expected that such a confusion of influences would not 
permit the formation of any settled character — That such a character is, 
nevertheless, acquired and maintained, is owing to some one leading 
determination, given by whatever means, to the mind, generally in early 
life — Common self-deceptive belief that we have maintained moral recti- 
tude, and the exercise of sound reason, under the impressions that have 
been forming our characters . . . . . p. 33 

LETTER IV. 

Most of the influences under which the characters of men are forming un- 
favourable to wisdom, virtue, and happiness — Proof of this if a number 
of persons, suppose a hundred, were to give a clear account of the cir- 
cumstances that have most effected the state of their minds— A few ex- 
amples — a misanthropist — a lazy prejudiced thinker— a man fancying him- 
self a genius — a projector— an antiquary in excess — a petty tyrant, p. 43 

LETTER V. 

An Atheist— Slight sketch of the process by which a man in the humbler 
order of abilities and attainments may become one . . p. 48 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER VI. 

The influence of Religion counteracted by almost all other influences — 
Pensive reflections on the imperfect manifestation of the Supreme Being— 
on the inefficacy of the belief of such a being — on the strangeness of 
that inefiicacy— and on the debasement and infelicity consequent on it — 
Happiness of a devout man . . . . . p. 56 

LETTER VII. 

Self-knowledge being supposed the principal object in writing the menlt)ir, 
the train of exterior fortunes and actions will claim but a subordinate 
notice in it— If it were intended for the amusement of the public, the 
writer would do well to fill it rather with incident and action — Yet the 
mere mental history of some men would be interesting to reflecting read- 
ers — of a man, for example, of a speculative disposition, who has passed 
through many changes of opinion — Influences that warp opinion — Efffects 
of time and experience on the notions and feelings cherished in early life 
— Feelings of a sensible old man on viewing a picture of his own mind, 
drawn by himself when he was young — Failure of excellent designs ; 
disappointment of sanguine hopes — Degree of explicitness required in the 
record — Conscience — Impudence and canting false pretences of many 
writers of " confessions" — Rousseau . . . . p. 63 



ESSAY II. 

ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

LETTER I. 

Examples of the distress and humiliation incident to an irresolute mind — 
Such a mind cannot be said to belong to itself— Manner in which a man 
of decisive spirit deliberates, and passes into action — Caesar — Such a spirit 
prevents the fretting away, in harassing alternations of will, of the ani- 
mated feelings required for sustaining the vigour of action — Averts im- 
pertinent interference — Acquires, if free from harshness of manner, an 
undisputed and beneficial ascendency over associates — Its last resource 
inflexible pertinacity— Instance in a man on a jury . . p. 76 

LETTER II. 

Brief inquiry into the constituents of this commanding quality — Physical 
constitution— Possibility, nevertheless, of a firm mind in a feeble body — 
Confidence in a man's own judgment — This an uncommon distinction — 
Picture of a man who wants it — This confidence distinguished from ob- 
stinacy—Partly founded on experience— Takes a high tone of indepen- 
dence in devising schemes — Distressing dilemmas . . p. 89 

LETTER III. 

Energy of feeling as necessary as confidence of opinion— Conduct that 
results from their combination — Effect and value of a ruling passion- 
Great decision of character invests even wicked beings with something 
which we are tempted to admire— Satan— Zanga— A Spanish assassin— 



CONTENTS. ?X1 

Eemarkable exanjple of this quality in a man who was a prodigal and 
became poor, but tuxned miser and became rich— Howard— Whitefield— 
Christian missionaries . . . • • . p. 97 

LETTER IV. 

Courage a chief constituent of the character— Effect of this in encounter- 
ing censure and ridicule — Almagro, Pizarro, and De Luques— Defiance of 
danger— Luther— Daniel— Another indispensable requisite to decision is 

. the full agreement of all the powers of the mind — Lady Macbeth — 
Richard III,— Cromwell— A father who had the opportunity of saving 
one of two sons from death . . . . . p. 105 

LETTER V. 

Formidable power of mischief which this high quality gives to bad men — 
Care required to prevent its rendering good men unconciliating and over- 
bearing — Independence and overruling manner in consultation — Lord 
Chatham— Decision of character not incompatible with sensibility and 
mild manners — But probably the majority of the most eminent examples 
of it deficient in the kinder affections— King of Prussia— Situations in 
which it may be an absolute duty to act in opposition to the promptings 
of those affections . . . . . . p. 113 

LETTER VI. 

Circumstances tending to consolidate this Character— Opposition — Desertion 
— Marius — Satan — Charles de Moor — Success has the same tendency — 
Caesar — Habit of associating with inferiors — Voluntary means of forming 
or conforming this character— The acquisition of perfect knowledge in 
the department in which we are to act — The cultivation of a connected 
and conclusive manner of reasoning — Tlie resolute commencement of 
action, in a manner to commit ourselves irretrievably — Ledyard — The 
choice of a dignified order of concerns — The approbation of conscience — 
Yet melancholy to consider how many of the most distinguished posses- 
sors of the quality have been wicked . . . .p. 120 



ESSAY III. 

ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 

LETTER I. 

Great convenience of having a number of words that will answer the pur- 
poses of ridicule or reprobation without having any precise meaning — 
Puritan — Methodist — Jacobin — The word Romantic of the greatest ser- 
vice to persons, who, wanting to show their scorn, have not wherewithal 
in the way of sense or wit — Whenever this epithet is applied, let the 
exact meaning be demanded— Does it attribute, to what it is applied to, 
the kind of absurdity prevalent in the works called Romances "? — That 
absurdity was from the predominance, in various modes, of imagi- 
nation over judgment — Mental character of the early Romance wri- 
ters—Opposite character of Cervantes— Delightful, delusive, and mis- 

2 



XU CONTENTS. 

chievous operation of a predominant imagination — Yet desirable for 
several reasons, that the imagination should have this ascendency ia 
early life p. 134 

LETTER II. 

One of the modes of this ascendency justly called Romantic, is, the un- 
founded persuasion of something peculiar and extraordinary in a person's 
destiny — This vain expectation may be relative to great talent and 
achievement, or to great felicity — Things ardently anticipated which not 
only cannot be attained, but would be unadapted to the nature and con- 
dition of man if they could— A person that hoped to out-do rather than 
imitate Gregory Lopez, the hermit— Absurd expectations of parents- 
Utopian anticipations of philosophers — Practical absurdity of the age of 
chivalry— The extravagant and exclusive passion for what is grand, p. 146 

LETTER IIL 

The epithet applicable to hopes and projects inconsistent with the known 
relations between ends and means — Reckoning on happy casualties — Mu- 
sing on instances of good luck — Novels go more than half the length of 
the older Romance in promoting this pernicious tendency of the mind — 
Specimen of what they do in this way — Fancy magnifies the smallest 
means into an apparent competence to the greatest ends — This delusive 
calculation apt to be admitted in schemes of benevolence — Projects for 
civilizing savage nations — Extravagant expectations of the efficacy of 
direct instruction, in the lessons of education, and in preaching — Re- 
formers apt to overrate the power of means — The fancy about the omni- 
potence of truth— Our expectations ought to be limited by what we ac- 
tually see and know of human nature — Estimate of that nature— Preva- 
lence of passion and appetite agaipst conviction . . p. 155 

LETTER IV. 

Christianity the grand appointed mean of reforming the world — But though 
the religion itself be a communication from heaven, the administration of 
it by human agents is to be considered as a merely human mean, except- 
ing so far as a special divine energy is made to accompany it — Its com- 
paratively small success proves in what an extremely limited measure 
that energy, as yet, accompanies it — Impotence of man to do what it 
leaves undone — Irrational to expect from its progressive administration a 
measure of success indefinitely surpassing the present state of its opera- 
tions, till we see some signs of a great change in the Divine Government 
of the world — Folly of projects to reform mankind which disclaim Re- 
ligion — Nothing in human nature to meet and give effect to the schemes 
and expedients of the moral revolutionist— Wretched state of that nature 
— Sample of the absurd estimates of its condition by the irreligious 
menders of society . . . . . . p. 170 

LETTER V. 

Melancholy reflections— No consolation .amidst the mysterious economy 
but in an assurance that an infinitely good Being presides, and will at 
length open out a new moral world— Yet many moral projectors are so- 
licitous to keep their schemes for the amendment of the world clear of 
any reference to the Almighty— Even good men are guilty of placing too 
much dependence on subordinate powers and agents — The representa- 
tions in this Essay not intended to depreciate to nothing the worth and 
use of the whole stock of means, but to reduce them, and the effects to 
be expected from them, to a sober estimate—A humble thing to be a man 
—Inculcation of devout submission, and diligence, and prayer— Sublime 



CONTENTS. Xm 

quality and indefinite efficacy of this last, as a mean— Conclusion ; 
briefly marking out a few general characters of sentiment and action to 
which, though very uncommon, the epithet Romantic is unjustly ap- 
plied p. 179 



— ^/\^\^N./V<~. 



ESSAY IV. 

ON SOME OF THE CAUSES BY "WHICH EVANGELICAL RELIGION HAS 
BEEN RENDERED UNACCEPTABLE TO PERSONS OF CULTIVATED 
TASTE. 

LETTER I. 

Nature of the displacency with which some of the most peculiar features 
of Christianity are regarded by many cultivated men, who do not deny 
or doubt the divine authority of the religion— Brief notice of the term 
Evangelical . . . . . . . p. 191 

LETTER II. 

One of the causes of the displacency is, that Christianity, being the religion 
of a great number of persons of weak and uncultivated minds, presents 
its doctrines to the view of men of taste associated with the characteris- 
tics of those minds ; and though some parts of the religion instantane- 
ously redeem themselves from that association by their philosophic dig- 
nity, other parts may require a considerable effort to detach them from it 
— This easily done if the men of taste were powerfully pre-occupiedand 
afiected by the religion — Reflections of one of them in this case — But the 
men of taste now in question are not in this case — Several specific causes 
of injurious impression, from this association of evangelical doctrines and 
sentiments with the intellectual littleness of the persons entertaining 
them— Their deficiency and dislike of all strictly intellectual exercise on 
religion— Their reducing the whole of religion to one or two favourite 
notions, and continually dwelling on them — The perfect indifference gf 
some of them to general knowledge, even when not destitute of means 
of acquiring it ; and the cofisequent voluntary and contented poverty of 
their religious ideas and language — Their admiration of things in a lite- 
rary sense utterly bad — Their complacency in their deficiencies — Their 
injudicioiTS habits and ceremonies — Their unfortunate metaphors and 
similes — Suggestion to religious teachers, that they should not nxn to its 
last possibleextent the parallel between the pleasures of piety, and those 
of eating and drinking — Mischief of such practices — Effect of the un- 
gracious collision between uncultivated seniors and a young person of 
literary and philosophic taste — Expostulation with this intellectual young 
person, on the folly and guilt of suffering his mind to take the impression 
of evangelical religion from any thing which he knows to be inferior to 
that religion itself, as exhibited by the New Testament, and by the most 
elevated of its disciples . . . . . . p. 197 

LETTER III. 

Anofher cause, the Peculiarity of Language adopted in religious discourse 
and writing — Classical standard of language — The theological deviation 
from it barbarous— Surprise and perplexity of a sensible heathen foreigner 

2 



XIV CONTENTS. 

who, having learnt our language according to its best standard alone, 
should be introduced to hear a public evangelical discouTse — Distinctive 
characters of this Theological Dialect— Reasons against employing it- 
Competence of our language to express all religious ideas without the aid 
of this uncouth peculiarity— Advantages that would attend the use of 
the language of mere general intelligence, with the addition of an ex- 
tremely small number of words that may be considered as necessary 
technical terms in theology ..... p. 219 

LETTER IV. 

Answer to the plea, in behalf of the dialect in question, that it is formed 
from the language of the Bible— Description of the manner in which it is 
so formed — This way of employing biblical language very different from 
simple quotation— Grace and utility with which brief forms of words, 
whether sentences or single phrases, may be introduced from the Bible, 
if they are brought in as pure pieces and particles of the sacred compo- 
sition, set in our own composition as something distinct from it and 
foreign to it — But the biblical phraseology in the Theological Dialect, in- 
stead of thus appearing in distinct bright points and gems, is modified and 
mixed up throughout the whole consistence of the diction, so as at once 
to lose its own venerable character, and to give a pervading uncouthness, 
without dignity, to the whole composition — Let the scripture language 
be quoted often, but not degraded into a barbarous compound phraseology 
— Even if it were advisable to construct the language of theological in- 
struction in some kind of resemblance to that of the Bible, it would not 
follow that it should be constructed in imitation of the phraseology of an 
antique version — License to very old theologians to retain in a great de- 
gree this peculiar dialect — Young ones recommended to learn to employ 
in religion the language in which cultivated men talk and write on gen- 
eral subjects — The vast mass of writing in a comprehensive literary 
sense bad, on the subjects of evangelical theology, one great cause of the 
distaste felt by men of intellectual refinement— Several kinds of this bad 
writing specified ....... p. 238 

LETTER V. 

A grand cause of displacency encountered by evangelical religion among 
men of taste is, that the great school in which that taste is formed, that 
of poUte literature, taken in the widest sense of the phrase, is hostile to 
that religion — Modern literature intended principally to be animadverted 
on— Brief notice of the ancient— Heathen theology, metaphysics, and 
morality — Harmlessness of the two former • deceptiveness of the last — 
But the chief influence is from so much of the history as may be called 
Biography, and from the Poetry — Homer — Manner in which the interest 
he excites is hostile to the spirit of the Christian religion— Virgil, p. 254 

LETTER VI. 

Lucan — Influence of the moral sublimity of his heroes — Plutarch — The 
Historians— Antichristian effect of admiring the moral greatness of the 
eminent heathens — Points of essential difference between excellence ac- 
cording to Christian principles, and the most elevated excellence of the 
Heathens — An unqualified complacency in the latter produces an aliena- 
tion of affection and admiration from the former . . p. 267 

LETTER VII. 

When a communication, declaring the true theory of both religion and 
morals, was admitted as coming from heaven, it was reasonable to ex- 
pect that, from the time of this revelation to the end of the world, all by 
whom it was so admitted would be religiously careful to maintain, in 



CONTENTS. XV 

whatever they taught on subjects within its cognizance, a systematic and 
punctilious conformity to its principles— Absurdity, impiety, and perni- 
cious effect, of disregarding this sovereign claim to conformity — The 
greatest number of our fine writers have incurred this guilt, and done 
this mischief— They are antichristian, in the first place, by omission ; 
they exclude from their moral sentiments the modifying interference of 
the Christian principles— Extended illustration of the fact, and of its 
consequences ....... p. 277 

LETTER VUI. 

More specific forms of their contrariety to the principles of Revelation — 
Their good man not a Christian — Contrasted with St. Paul — Their theory 
of happiness essentially different from the evangelical— Short statement 
of both — In moralizing on life, they do not habitually consider, and they 
prevent their readers from considering, the present state as introduc- 
tory to another — Their consolations for distress, old age, and death, 
widely different, on the whole, from those which constitute so much of 
the value of the Gospel— The grandeur and heroism in death, which they 
have represented with irresistible eloquence, emphatically and pemi- ' 
ciously opposite to the Christian doctrine and examples of sublimity and 
. happiness in death — Examples from tragedy ... p. 287 

LETTER IX. 

The estimate of the depraved moral condition of human nature is quite 
different in revelation and polite literature — Consequently, the Redemp- 
tion by Jesus Christ, which appears with such momentous importance in 
the one, is, in comparison, a trifle in the other — Our fine writers employ 
and justify antichristian motives to action, especially the love of fame — 
The morality of this passion argued — The earnest repression of it shown 
to be a duty — Some of the lighter order of our popular writers have aided 
the counteraction of literature to evangelical religion by careless or ma- 
lignant ridicule of things associated with it — Brief notice of the several 
classes of fine writers, as lying under the charge of contributing to alien- 
ate men of taste from the doctrines and moral spirit of the New Testa- 
ment — Moral philosophers — Historians— Essayists — Addison — Johnson — 
The Poets— Exception in favour of Milton, &c.— Pope— Antichristian 
quality of his Essay on Man — Novels — Melancholy reflections on the 
Review — Conclusion . . . . • . .p. 308 



ESSAY I. 

ON A MAN'S WRITING MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 



LETTER I. 



Every one knows with what interest it is natural to 
retrace the course of our own lives. The past states 
and periods of a man's being are retained in a connex- 
ion with the present by that principle of self-love, 
which is unwilling to relinquish its hold on what has 
once been his. Though he cannot but be sensible of 
how little consequence his life can have been in the 
creation, compared with many other trains of events, 
yet he has felt it more important to himself than all 
other trains together ; and you will very rarely find 
him tired of narrating again the little history, or at 
least the favourite parts of the little history, of himself. 

To turn this partiality to some account, I recollect 
having proposed to two or three of m}?- friends, that 
they should write, each principally however for his 
own use, memoirs of their own lives, endeavouring not 
so much to enumerate the mere facts and events of 
life, as to discriminate the successive states of the mind, 
and so trace the progress of what may be called the 
character. In this progress consists the chief impor- 
tance of life ; but even on an inferior account also to 
this of what the character has become, and regarded 
merely as supplying a constant series of interests to the 
2* 



18 ON A man's writing 

affections and passions, we have all accounted our life 
an inestimable possession which it deserved incessant 
cares and labours to retain, and which continues in 
most cases to be still held with anxious attachment. 
What has been the object of so much partiality, and 
has been delighted and pained by so many emotions, 
might claim, even if the highest interest were out of 
the question, that a short memorial should be retained 
by him who has possessed it, has seen it all to this 
moment depart, and can never recall it. 

To write memoirs of many years, as twenty, thirty, 
or forty, seems, at the first glance,- a very onerous task. 
To reap the products of so many acres of earth indeed 
might, to one person, be an undertaking of mighty toil. 
But the materials of any value that all past life can 
supply to a recording pen, would be reduced by a dis- 
cerning selection to a very small and modest amount. 
Would as much as one page of moderate size be deemed 
by any man's self-importance to be due, on an average, 
to each of the days that he has lived ? No man would 
judge more than one in ten thousand of all his thoughts, 
sayings, and actions, worthy to be mentioned, if mem- 
ory were capable of recalling them.* Necessarily a 
very large portion of what has occupied the successive 
years of life was of a kind to be utterly useless for a 
history of it ; being merely for the accommodation of 
the time. Perhaps in the space of forty or fifty years, 
millions of sentences are proper to be uttered, and many 
thousands of afl^airs requisite to be transacted, or of 
journeys to be performed, which it would be ridiculous 
to record. They are a kind of material for the com- 
mon expenditure and waste of the day. Yet it is often 
by a detail of this subordinate economy of life, that the 
works of fiction, the narratives of age, the journals of 
travellers, and even grave biographical accounts, are 

* An exception may "be admitted for the few individuals whose 
daily deliberations, discourses and proceedings, affect the interests 
of mankind on a grand scale. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 19 

made so unreasonably long. As well might a chron- 
icle of the coats that a man has worn, with the colour 
and date of each, be called his life, for any important 
uses of relating its history. As well might a man, of 
whom I inquire the dimensions, the internal divisions, 
and the use, of some remarkable building, begin to tell 
me how much wood was employed in the scaffolding, 
where the mortar was prepared, or how often it rained 
while the work was proceeding. 

But, in a deliberate review of all that we can re- 
member of past life, it will be possible to select a cer- 
tain proportion which may with the most propriety be 
regarded as the history of the man. What I am rec- 
ommending is, to follow the order of time, and reduce 
your recollections, from the earliest period to the pres- 
ent, into as simple a statement and explanation as you 
can, of your feelings, opinions, and habits, and of the 
principal circumstances through each stage that have 
influenced them, till they have become at last what 
they now are. 

Whatever tendencies nature may justly be deemed 
to have imparted in the first instance, you would prob- 
ably find the greater part of the moral constitution of 
your being composed of the contributions of many 
years and events, consolidated by degrees into what 
we call character ; and by investigating the progress 
of the accumulation, you would be assisted to judge 
more clearly how far the materials are valuable, the 
mixture congruous, and the whole conformation worthy 
to remain unaltered. With respect to any friend who 
greatly interests us, we have a curiosity to obtain an- 
accurate account of the past train of his life and feel- 
ings: and whatever other reasons there may be for 
such a wish, it partly springs from a consciousness how 
much this retrospective knowledge would assist to 
complete our estimate of that friend ; but our estimate 
of ourselves is of more serious consequence. 

The elapsed periods of life acquire importance too 



20 ON A man's writing 

from the prospect of its continuance. The smallest 
thing rises into consequence when regarded as the 
commencement of what has advanced, or is advancing 
into magnificence. The first rude settlement of Rom- 
ulus would have been an insignificant circumstance, 
and might justly have sunk into oblivion, if Rome had 
not at length commanded the world. The little rill 
near the source of one of the great American rivers, is 
an interesting object to the traveller, who is apprised, 
as he steps across it, or walks a few miles along its 
bank, that this is the stream which runs so far, and 
which gradually swells into so vast a flood. So, while 
I anticipate the endless progress of life, and wonder 
through what unknown scenes it is to take its course, 
its past years lose that character of vanity which would 
seem to belong to a train of fleeting, perishing mo- 
ments, and I see them assuming the dignity of a com- 
mencing eternity. In them I have begun to be that 
conscious existence which I am to be through endless 
duration ; and I feel a strange emotion of curiosity 
about this little life, in which I am setting out on such 
a progress ; I cannot be content without an accurate 
sketch of the windings thus far of a stream which is to 
bear me on for ever. I try to imagine how it will be 
to recollect, at a far distant point of my era, what I 
was when here ; and wish if it were possible to retain, 
as I advance, some clear trace of the whole course of 
my existence within the scope of reflection ; to fix in 
my mind so strong an idea of what I have been in this 
original period of my time, that I may possess this idea 
in ages too remote for calculation. 

The review becomes still more important, when I 
learn the influence which this first part of the progress 
will have on the happiness or misery of the next. 

One of the greatest difficulties in the way of execu- 
ting the proposed task will have been caused by the 
extreme deficiency of that selfobservatbn, which is of 
no common habit either of youth or any later age. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 21 

Men are content to have no more intimate sense of 
their existence than what they feel in the exercise of 
their facukies on extraneous objects. The vital being, 
with all its agency and emotions, is so blended and ab- 
sorbed in these its extrior interests, that it is very rare- 
ly collected and concentrated in the consciousness of its 
own absolute se//, so as to be recognised as a thing in- 
ternal, apart and alone, for its own inspection and 
knowledge. Men carry their minds as for the most 
part they carry their watches, content to be ignorant 
of the constitution and action within, and attentive only 
to the little exterior circle of things, to which the pas- 
sions, like indexes, are pointing. It is surprising to see 
how little self-knowledge a person not watchfully ob- 
servant of himself may have gained, in the whole 
course of an active, or even an inquisitive life. He 
may have lived almost an age, and traversed a conti- 
nent, minutely examining its curiosities, and interpret- 
ing the half-obliterated characters on its monuments, 
unconscious the while of a process operating on his 
own mind, to impress or to erase characteristics of much 
more importance to him than all the figured brass or 
marble that Europe contains. After having explored 
many a cavern or dark ruinous avenue, he may have 
left undetected a darker recess within where there 
would be much more striking discoveries. He may 
have conversed with many people, in different lan- 
guages, on numberless subjects ; but, having neglected 
those conversations with himself by which his whole 
moral being should have been kept continually dis- 
closed to his view, he is better qualified perhaps to de- 
scribe the intrigues of a foreign court, or the progress 
of a foreign trade ] to depict the manners of the Italians, 
or the Turks ; to narrate the proceedings of the Jesuits, 
or the adventures of the gypsies ; than to write the 
history of his own mind. 

If we had practised habitual self-observation, we 
could not have failed to be made aware of much that 



22 ON A man's writing 

it had been well for us to know. There have been 
thousands of feelings, each of which, if strongly seized 
upon, and made the subject of reflection, would have 
shown us what our character was, and what it was 
likely to become. There have been numerous in- 
cidents, which operated on us as tests, and so fully 
brought out our prevailing quality, that another person, 
who should have been discriminately observing us, 
would speedily have formed a decided estimate. But 
unfortunately the mind is generally too much occupied 
by the feeling or the incident itself, to have the slight- 
est care or consciousness that any thing could be learnt 
or is disclosed. In very early youth it is almost in- 
evitable for it to be thus lost to itself even amidst its 
own feelings, and the external objects of attention ; but it 
seems a contemptible thing, and certainly is a criminal 
and dangerous thing, for a man in mature life to allow 
himself this thoughtless escape from self-examination. 

We have not only neglected to observe what our 
feelings indicated, but have also in a very great degree 
ceased to remember what they were. We may wonder 
how we could pass away successively from so many 
scenes and conjunctures, each in its time of no trifling 
moment in our apprehension, and retain so light an 
impression, that we have now nothing distinctly to tell 
about what once excited our utmost emotion. As to 
my own mind, I perceive that it is becoming uncertain 
of the exact nature of many feelings of considerable 
interest, even of comparatively recent date ; and that 
the remembrance of what was felt in very early life 
has nearly faded away. I have just been observing 
several children of eight or ten years old, in all the ac- 
tive vivacity which enjoys the plenitude of the moment 
without " looking before or after ;" and while observing, 
I attempted, but without success, to recollect what I was 
at that age. I can indeed remember the principal 
events of the period, and the actions and projects to 
which my feelings impelled me \ but the feelings them 



MEMOIRS OF HmSELF. 23 

selves, in their own pure juvenility, cannot be revived 
so as to be described and placed in comparison with 
those of later life. What is become of all those vernal 
fancies which had so much power to touch the heart ? 
What a number of sentiments have lived and revelled 
in the soul that are now irrevocably gone ! They died 
like the singing birds of that time, which sing no 
more. The life we then had, now seems almost as if 
it could not have been our own. We are like a man 
returning, after the absence of many years, to visit the 
embowered cottage where he passed the morning of 
his life, and finding only a relic of its ruins. 

Thus an oblivious shade is spread over that early 
tract of our time, where some of the acquired propen- 
sities which remain in force to this hour may have had 
their origin, in a manner of which we had then no 
thought or consciousness. When we met with the in- 
cident, or heard the conversation, or saw the spectacle, 
or felt the emotion, which were the first causes or oc- 
casions of some of the chief permanent tendencies of 
future life, how little could we think that long after- 
wards we might be curiously and in vain desirous to 
investigate those tendencies back to their origin. 

In some occasional states of the mind, we can look 
back much more clearly, and much further, than at 
other times. I \vould advise to seize those short in- 
tervals of illumination which sometimes occur without 
our knowing the cause, and in which the genuine 
aspect of some remote event, or long-forgotten image, 
is recovered with extreme distinctness in spontaneous 
glimpses of thought, such as no effort could have com- 
manded ; as the sombre features and minute objects of 
a distant ridge of hills become strikingly visible in the 
strong gleams of light which transiently fall on them. 
An instance of this kind occurred to me but a few 
hours since, while reading what had no perceptible 
connexion with a circumstance of my early youth, 
which probably I have not recollected for many years, 



24 ON A man's writing 

and which was of no unusual interest at the time it 
happened. That circumstance came suddenly to my 
mind with a clearness of representation which I was 
not able to retain to the end of an hour, and which I 
could not at this instant renew by the strongest effort. 
I seemed almost to see the walls and windows of a par- 
ticular room, with four or five persons in it, who were 
so perfectly restored to my imagination, that I could 
recognise not only the features, but even the momen- 
tary expressions, of their countenances, and the tones 
of their voices. 

According to different states of the mind too, retro- 
spect appears longer or shorter. It may happen that 
some memorable circumstance of very early life shall 
be so powerfully recalled, as to contract the wide 
intervening space, by banishing from the view, a little 
while, all the series of intermediate remembrances ; 
but when this one object of memory retires again to its 
remoteness and indifference, and all the others resume 
their proper places and distances, the retrospect appears 
long. 

Places and things which have an association with 
any of the events or feelings of past life, will greatly 
assist the recollection of them. A man of strong as- 
sociations finds memorials of himself already traced 
on the places where he has conversed with happiness 
or misery. If an old man wished to animate for a 
moment the languid and faded ideas which he retains 
of his youth, he might walk with his crutch across the 
green, where he once played with companions who are 
now laid to repose probably in another green spot not 
far off. An aged saint may meet again some of the 
affecting ideas of his early piety, in the place where 
he first found it happy to pray. A walk in a meadow, 
the sight of a bank of flowers, perhaps even of some 
one flower, a landscape with the tints of autumn, the 
descent into a valley, the brow of a mountain, the house 
where a friend has been met, or has resided, or has 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 25 

died, have often produced a much more lively recol- 
lection of our past feelings, and of the objects and events 
which caused them, than the most perfect description 
could have done ; and we have lingered a considerable 
time for the pensive luxury of thus resuming the long- 
departed state. 

But there are many to whom local associations 
present images which they fervently wish they could 
exorcise ; images which haunt the places where crimes 
had been perpetrated, and which seem to approach and 
glare on the criminal as he hastily passes by, especially 
if in the evening or the night. No local associations 
are so impressive as those of guilt. It may here be ob- 
served, that as each one has his own separate remem- 
brances, giving to some places an aspect and a signifi- 
cance which he alone can perceive, there must be an 
unknown number of pleasing, or mournful, or dread- 
ful associations, spread over the scenes inhabited or 
visited by men. We pass without any awakened con- 
sciousness by the bridge, or the wood, or the house, 
where there is something to excite the most painful 
or frightful ideas in another man if he were to go that 
way, or it may be in the companion who walks along 
with us. How much there is in a thousand spots of 
the earth, that is invisible and silent to all but the con- 
scious individual ! 

I hear a voice you cannot hear ; 
I see a hand you cannot see. 



LETTER II. 

We may regard our past life as a continued though 

irregular course of education, through an order, or 

rather disorder of means, consisting of instruction, 

companionship, reading, and the diversified influences 

3 



26 ON A man's writing 

of the world. The young mind, in the mere natural 
impulse of its activity, and innocently unthinking of 
any process it was about to undergo, came forward to 
meet the operation of some or all of these plastic cir- 
cumstances. It would be worth while to examine in 
what manner and measure they have respectively had 
their influence on us. 

Few persons can look back to the early period when 
they were most directly the subjects of instruction, 
without a regret for themselves, (which may be ex- 
tended to the human race.) that the result of instruction, 
excepting that which leads to evil, bears so small a 
proportion to its compass and repetition. Yet some 
good consequence must follow the diligent inculcation 
of truth and precept on the youthful mind ; and our 
consciousness of possessing certain advantages derived 
from it will be a partial consolation, in the review which 
will comprise so many proofs of its comparative ineffi- 
cacy. You can recollect, perhaps, the instructions to 
which you feel yourself permanently the most indebted, 
and some of those which produced the greatest effect 
at the time, those which surprised, delighted, or mor- 
tified you. You can partially remember the facility or 
difficulty of understanding, the facility or difficulty of 
believing, and the practical influences which you drew 
from principles, on the strength of your own reason, 
and sometimes in variance with those made by your in- 
structors. You can remember what views of truth 
and duty were most frequently and cogently presented, 
v/hat passions were appealed to, what arguments were 
employed, and which had the greatest influence. Per- 
haps your present idea of the most convincing and 
persuasive mode of instruction, may be derived from 
your early experience of the manner of those persons 
with whose opinions you felt .it the most easy and de- 
lightful to harmonize, who gave you the most agree- 
able consciousness of your faculties expanding to the 
light like morning flowers, and who, assuming the 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 27 

least of dictation, exerted the greatest degree of power. 
You can recollect the submissiveness with which your 
mind yielded to instructions as from an oracle, or 
the hardihood with which you dared to examine and 
oppose them. You can remember how far they be- 
came, as to your own conduct, an internal authority of 
reason and conscience, when you were not under the 
inspection of those who inculcated them ; and what 
classes of persons or things around you they contrib- 
uted to make you dislike or approve. And you can 
perhaps imperfectly trace the manner and the particu- 
lars in which they sometimes aided, or sometimes 
counteracted, those other influences which have a far 
stronger efficacy on the character than instruction can 
boast. 

Some persons can recollect certain particular sen- 
tences or conversations which made so deep an im- 
pression, perhaps in some instances they can scarcely 
tell why, that they have been thousands of times re- 
called, while innumerable others have been forgotten ; 
or they can revert to some striking incident, coming in 
aid of instruction, or being of itself a forcible instruc- 
tion, which they seem even now to see as plainly as 
when it happened, and of which they will retain a per- 
fect idea to the end of life. The most remarkable cir- 
cumstances of this kind deserve to be recorded in the 
supposed memoirs. In some instances, to recollect the 
instructions of a former period will be to recollect too 
the excellence, the affection, and the death, of the per- 
sons who gave them. Amidst the sadness of such a 
remembrance, it will be a consolation that they are not 
entirely lost to us. Wise monitions, when they return 
on us with this melancholy charm, have more pathetic 
cogency than when they were first uttered by the 
voice of a living friend. It will be an interesting oc- 
cupation of the pensive hour, to recount the advantages 
which we have received from the beings who have left 



2^ ON A man's writing 

the world, and to reinforce our virtues from the dust 
of those who first taught them. 

In our review, we shall find that the companions of 
our childhood, and of each succeeding period, have 
had a great influence on our characters. A creature 
so prone to conformity as man, and at the same time 
so capable of being moulded into partial dissimilarity 
by social antipathies, cannot have conversed with his 
fellow beings thousands of hours, walked with them 
thousands of miles, undertaken with them numberless 
enterprises, smaller and greater, and had every passion, 
by turns, awakened in their company, without being 
immensely affected by all this association. A large- 
share, indeed, of the social interest may have been of 
so common a kind, and with persons of so common an 
order, that the efiect on the character has been too little 
peculiar to be perceptible during the progress. We 
"were not sensible of it, till we came to some of those 
circumstances and changes in life, which make us 
aware of the state of our minds by the manner in 
which new objects are acceptable or repulsive to them. 
On removing into a new circle of society, for instance, 
we could perceive by the number of things in which 
we found ourselves uncomplacent and unconformable 
with the new acquaintance, the modification which our 
sentiments had received in the preceding social inter- 
course. But in some instances we have been in a 
short time sensible of a powerful force operating on our 
opinions, tastes, and habits, and reducing them to a 
greatly altered cast. This effect is inevitable, if a 
young susceptible mind happens to become familiarly 
acquainted with a person in whom a strongly individual 
character is sustained and dignified by uncommon 
mental resources ; and it may be found that, generally, 
the greatest measure of effect has been produced by the 
influence of a very smal] number of persons ; often of 
one only, whose master-spirit had more power to sur-^ 
round and assimilate a yourg ingenuous being, than 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 29 

the collective influence of a multitude of the persons, 
whose characters were moulded in the manufactory of 
custom, and sent forth like images of clay of kindred 
shape and varnish from a pottery. — I am supposing, 
all along, that the person who writes memoirs of him- 
self, is conscious of a something more peculiar than a 
mere dull resemblance of that ordinary form and in- 
significance of character, which it strangely depreciates 
our nature to see such a multitude exemplifying. As 
to the crowd of those who are faithfully stamped, like 
bank notes, with the same marks, with the difference 
only of being worth more guineas or fewer, they are 
mere particles of a class, mere pieces and bits of the 
great vulgar or the small ; they need not write their 
history, it may be found in the newspaper chronicle, 
or the gossip's or the sexton's narrative. 

It is obvious, in what I have suggested respecting 
the research through past life, that all the persons who 
are recalled to the mind, as having had an influence on 
us, must stand before it in judgment. It is impossible 
to examine our moral and intellectual growth without 
forming an estimate, as we proceed, of those who re- 
tarded, advanced, or perverted it. Our dearest relations 
and friends cannot be exempted. There will be in 
some instances the necessity of blaming where we 
would wish to give entire praise ] though perhaps some 
worthy motives and generous feelings may, at the 
same time, be discovered in the conduct, where they 
had hardly been perceived or allowed before. But, at 
any rate, it is important that in no instance the judg- 
ment be duped into delusive estimates, amidst the ex- 
amination, and so as to compromise the principles of 
the examination, by which we mean to bring ourselves 
to rigorous justice. For if any indulgent partiality, or 
mistaken idea, of that duty which requires a kind and 
candid feeling to accompany the clearest discernment of 
defects, may be permitted to beguile our judgment out 
of the decisions of justice in favour of others, self-love, 
3* 



30 ON A man's writing 

a still more indulgent and partial feeling, will not fail 
to practise the same beguilement in favour of ourselves. 
But indeed it would seem impossible, besides being ab- 
surd, to apply one set of principles to judge of our- 
selves, and another to judge of those with whom we 
have associated. 

Every person of tolerable education has been con- 
siderably influenced by the books he has read; and 
remembers with a kind of gratitude several of those 
that made without injury the earliest and the strongest 
impression. It is pleasing at a more advanced period 
to look again into the early favourites ; though the 
mature person may wonder how some of them had once 
power to absorb his passions, make him retire into a 
lonely wood in order to read unmolested, repel the 
approaches of sleep, or, when it came, infect it with 
visions. A capital part of the proposed ^sk would be 
to recollect the books that have been read with the 
greatest interest, the periods when they were read, the 
partiality which any of them inspired to a particular 
mode of life, to a study, to a system of opinions, or to 
a class of human characters ; to note the counteraction 
of later ones (where we have been sensible of it) to 
the effect produced" by the former ; and then to en- 
deavour to estiinate the whole and ultimate influence. 

Considering the multitude of facts, sentiments, and 
characters, which have been contemplated by a person 
who has read much, the effect, one should think, must 
have been very great. Still, however, it is probable 
that a very small number of books will have the pre- 
eminence in our mental history. Perhaps your memo- 
ry will promptly recur to six or ten that have contribu- 
ted more to your present habits of feeling and thought 
than all the rest together. — It may be observed hero, 
that when a few books of the same kind have pleased 
us emphatically, it is a possible ill consequence that 
they may create an almost exclusive taste, which is car- 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 31 

ried through all future reading, and is pleased cnly 
with books of that kind. 

It might be supposed that the scenes of nature, an 
amazing assernblage of phenomena if their effect were 
not lost tlyrough familiarity, would have a powerful in- 
fluence on opening minds, and trtffsfuse into the inter- 
nal economy of ideas and sentiment something of a 
character and a colour correspondent to the beauty, 
vicissitude, and grandeur, which press on the senses. 
They have this^effect on minds of genius ; and Beattie's 
Minstrel may be' as just as^r^fe a captivating description 
of the perceptions and emotions of such a spirit. But 
on the greatest number this influence operates feebly ; 
you will not see the process in children, nor the result 
in mature persons. That significance is unfelt, which 
belongs to the beauties of nature as something more 
than their being merely objects of the senses. And in 
many instances even the senses themselves are so de- 
ficient in attention, so idly passive, and therefore appre- 
hend these objects so slightly, undefinedly, and tran- 
siently, that it is no wonder the impressions do not go 
so much deeper than the senses as to infuse a mood of 
sentiment, awaken the mind to thoughtful and imagi- 
native action, and form in it an order of feelings and 
ideas congenial with what is fair and great in external 
nature. This defect of sensibility and fancy is unfor- 
tunate amidst a creation infinitely rich with grand and 
beautiful objects, which can impart to a mind adapted 
and habituated to converse with nature an exquisite 
sentiment, that seems to come as by an emanation from 
a spirit dwelling in those objects. It is unfortunate I 
have thought within these few minutes — while looking 
out on one of the most enchanting nights of the most 
interesting season of the year, and hearing the voices 
of a company of persons, to whom I can perceive that 
this soft and solemn shade over the earth, the calm 
sky, the beautiful stripes of cloud, the stars, the wa- 
ning moon just risen, are things not in the least more 



32 

interesting than the walls, ceiling, and candle-light of 
a room. I feel no vanity in this instance ; for perhaps 
a thousand aspects of night not less striking than this, 
have appeared before my eyes and departed, not only 
without awaking emotion, but almost without attracting 
notice. 

If minds in general are not made to be strongly af- 
fected by the phenomena of the earth and heavens, 
they are however all subject to be powerfully influ- 
enced by the appearances and character of the human 
world. I suppose a child in Switzerland, growing up 
to a man, would have acquired incomparably more of 
the cast of his mind from the events, manners, and 
actions of the next village, though its inhabitants were 
but his occasional companions, than from all the moun- 
tain scenes, the cataracts, and every circumstance of 
beauty or sublimity in nature around him. We are 
all true to our species, and very soon feel its im- 
portance to us, (though benevolence be not the basis 
of the interest,) far beyond the importance of any 
thing that we see besides. Beginning your observa- 
tion with children, you may have noted how instantly 
they will turn their attention away from any of the 
aspects of nature, however rare or striking, if human 
objects present themselves to view in any active man- 
ner. This " leaning to our kind" brings each indi- 
vidual not only under the influence attending immedi- 
ate association with a few, but under the operation of 
numberless influences, from all the moral diversities 
of which he is a spectator in the living world ; a com- 
plicated though insensible tyranny, of which everjr 
fashion, folly, and vice, may exercise its part. 

Some persons would be able to recollect very strong 
and influential impressions made, in almost the first 
years of life, by some of the events and appearances 
which they witnessed in surrounding society. But 
whether the operation on us of the formative power of 
the community began with impressions of extraordi- 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 33 

nary force or not, it has been prolonged through the 
whole course of our acquaintance with mankind. It 
is no little effect for the living world to have had on 
us, that very many of our present opinions are owing 
to what we have seen and experienced in it. That 
thinking which has involuntarily been kept in exercise 
on it, however remiss and desultory, could not fail to 
result in a number of settled notions, which may be 
said to be shaped upon its facts and practices. We 
could not be in sight of it, and in intercourse with it, 
without the formation of opinions adjusted to what we 
found in it ; and thus far it has been the creator of our 
mental economy. But its operation has not stopped 
here. It will not confine itself to occupying the un- 
derstanding, and yield to be a mere subject for judg- 
ments to be formed upon ; but all the while that the 
observer is directing on it the exercise of his judicial 
capacity, it is reactively throwing on him various 
moral influences and infections. 



LETTER III. 

A PERSON capable of being deeply interested, and 
accustomed to reflect on his feelings, will have ob- 
served in himself this subjection to the influences of 
what has been presented to him in society. Their 
force may have been suflicient in some instances to go 
far toward new-modelhng the habit of the mind. 
Recollect your own experience. After witnessing 
some remarkable transaction, or some new and strange 
department of life and manners, or some striking dis- 
closure of character, or after listening to some extra- 
ordinary conversation, or impressive recital of facts, 
you may have been conscious that what you have 
heard or seen has given your mind some one strong 



34 ON A man's writing 

determination of a nature resulting from the quality of 
that which has made the impression. It is true, that 
your receiving the effect in this one manner implies 
the existence of an adapted predisposition, for many 
other persons might not have been similarly affected ; 
yet the newly acquired impulse might be so different 
from the former action of your mind, and at the same 
time so strong, as to give you the consciousness of a 
greatly altered moral being. In the state thus sud- 
denly formed, some of the previously existing disposi- 
tions had sunk subordinate, while others, which had 
been hitherto inert, were grown into an imperious 
prevalence : or even a new one appeared to have been 
originated.* While this state continues, a man is in 
character another man ; and if the moral tendency 
thus excited or created, could be prolonged into the se- 
quel of his life, the difference might be such, that it 
would be by means only of his person that he would 
he recognized for the same ; while an observer igno- 
rant of the cause would be perplexed and surprised at 
the change. Now this permanence of the new moral 
direction might be effected, if the impression which 
causes it were so intensely powerful as to haunt him 
ever after ; or if he were subjected to a long succes- 
sion of impressions of the same tendency, without any 
powerfully opposite ones intervening to break the pro- 
cess. 

You have witnessed perhaps a scene of injustice and 
oppression, and have retired with an indignation which 
has imprecated vengeance. Now supposing that the 
image of this scene were to be revived in your mind 
in all its odiousness, as often as any iniquitous circum- 
stance in society should present itself to your notice, 
and that you had an entire persuasion that your feeling 
was the pure indignation of virtue ; or, supposing that 

* So great an effect, however, as this last, is perhaps rarely ex- 
perienced from even the most powerful causes, except in early 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 35 

you were repeatedly to witness similar instances, with- 
out diminution of the abhorrence by familiarity with 
them ; the consequence might be that you would ac- 
quire the spirit of Draco or Minos. 

It is easy to imagine the impression of a few atro- 
cious facts on an ardent constitution, converting a 
humane horror of cruelty into the vindictive fanaticism 
of Montbar, the Buccaneer.* A person of gentler 
sensibility, by accidentally witnessing a scene of dis- 
tress, of which none of the circumstances caused dis- 
gust toward the sufferers, or indignation against others 
as the cause of the suffering, having once tasted the 
pleasure of soothing woes which perhaps death alone 
can terminate, might be led to seek other instances of 
distress, acquire both an aptitude and a partiality for 
the charitable office, and become a pensive philan- 
thropist. The repulsion which has struck the observer 
of some extravagance of ostentatious wealth, or some 
excess of frivolity and dissipation, and acted on him 
again at sight of every succeeding and inferior instance 
of the same kind, with a greater force than would 
have been felt in these inferior instances, if the offen- 
sive effect did not run into the vestiges of the first in- 
delible impression, may produce a cynic or a miser, a 
recluse or a philosopher. Numberless other illustra- 
tions might be brought to shew how much the charac- 
ters of human beings, entering on life with unwarned 
carelessness of heart, are at the mercy of the incalcu- 
lable influences which may strike them from any 
point of the surrounding world. 

It is true that, notwithstanding so many influences 
are acting on men, and some of them apparently of a 
kind and of a force to produce in their subjects a 
notable peculiarity, comparatively few characters de- 
terminately marked from all around them are found to 
arise. In looking on a large company of persons 

* Abbe Raynal's History of the Indies. 



36 ON A man's writing 

whose dispositions and pursuits are substantially alike, 
we cannot doubt that several of them have met with 
circumstances, of which the natural tendency must 
have been to give them a determination of mmd ex 
tremely dissimilar to the character of those whom they 
now so much resemble. And why does the influence 
of such circumstances fail to produce such a result ? 
Partly, because the influences which are of a more 
peculiar and specific operation are overborne and lost 
in that wide general influence, which accumulates and 
conforms each individual to the crowd ; and partly, 
because even were there no such general influence to 
steal away the impressions of a more peculiar tendency, 
few minds are of so fixed and faithful a consistence as 
to retain, in continued efficacy, impressions of a kind 
which the common course of life is not adapted to 
reinforce, nor prevailing example to confirm. The 
mind of the greater proportion of human beings, if 
attempted to be wrought into any boldly specific form, 
proves like a half-fluid substance, in which angles or 
circles, or any other figures may be cut, but which re- 
covers, while you are looking, its former state, and 
closes them up ; or like a quantity of dust which may 
be raised into momentary reluctant shapes, but which 
is relapsing, amidst the operation, towards its undefined 
mass. 

But if characters of strong individual peculiarity are 
somewhat rare, such as are marked with the respective 
distinctions which discriminate moral classes are very 
numerous ; the decidedly avaricious for instance ; the 
devoted slaves of fashion ; and the eager aspirers to 
power, in however confined a sphere, the little Alex- 
anders of a mole-hill, quite as ambitious, in their way, 
as the great Alexander of a world. It is observable 
here, how much more largely the worse prominences 
of human character meet our attention than the better. 
And it is a melancholy illustration of the final basis of 
character, human nature itself, that both the dis- 



I 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 37 

tinctions which designate a bad class, and those which 
constitute a bad individual peculiarity, are attained 
with far the greatest frequency and facility. While, 
however, I have the most entire conviction of this 
mighty inclination to evil, which is the grand cause of 
all the diversified forms of evil ; and while, at the same 
time, I hold the vulgar belief of a great native dif- 
ference between men, in the original temperament of 
those principles, which are to be unfolded by the 
progress of time into intellectual powers and moral 
dispositions ; I yet cannot but perceive that the im- 
mediate and occasional causes of the greater portion of 
the prominent actual character of human beings, are 
to be found in those moral elements through which 
they pass. And if one might be pardoned for putting 
in words so fantastic an idea, as that of its being pos- 
sible for a man to live back again to his infancy, through 
all the scenes of his life, and to give back from his 
mind and character, at each time and circumstance, as 
he repassed it, exactly that which he took from it, when 
he was there before, it would be most curious to see the 
fragments and exuvice of the moral man lying here and 
there along the retrograde path, and to find what he 
was in the beginning of this train of modifications and 
acquisitions. Nor can it be doubted that any man, 
whose native tendencies were ever so determinate, and 
who has passed through a course of events and interests 
adapted to develope and confirm them according to 
their determination, might, by being led through a dif- 
ferent train, counteractive to those native tendencies, 
have been an extremely different man from what he 
now is. — I am supposing his mind to be in either case 
equally cultivated, and referring to another kind of dif- 
ference than that which would in any case be made by 
the different measure or quantity, if I may express it so, 
of intellectual attainment. 

Here a person of your age might pause, and look 
hack with great interest on the world of circumstances 



38 ON A man's writing 

through which life has been drawn. Consider what 
thousands of situations, appearances, incidents, persons, 
you have been present with, each in its time. The 
review would carry you over something like a chaos, 
with all the moral, and all other elements, confounded 
together ; and you may reflect till you begin almost to 
wonder how an individual retains the same essence 
through all the diversities, vicissitudes, and counter- 
actions of influence, that operate on it during its 
progress through the confusion. While the essential 
being might, however, defy the universe to extinguish, 
absorb, or transmute it, you will find it has come out 
with dispositions and habits which will shew where it 
has been, and what it has undergone. You may 
descry on it the marks and colours of many of the 
things by which it has, in passing, been touched or 
arrested. 

Consider the number of meetings with acquaintance, 
friends, or strangers ; the number of conversations you 
have held or heard ; the number of exhibitions of good 
or evil, virtue or vice ; the number of occasions on 
which you have been disgusted or pleased, moved to 
admiration or to abhorrence ; the number of times 
that you have contemplated the town, the rural cot- 
tage, or verdant fields ; the number of volumes you 
have read ; the times that you have looked over the 
present state of the world, or gone by means of history 
into past ages ; the number of comparisons of yourself 
with other persons, alive or dead, and. comparisons of 
them with one another ; the number of solitary mu- 
sings, of solemn contemplations of night, of the suc- 
cessive subjects of thought, and of animated senti- 
ments that have been kindled and extinguished. Add 
all the hours and causes of sorrow which you have 
known. Through this lengthened, and, if the num- 
ber could be told, stupendous multiplicity of things, 
you have advanced, while all their heterogeneous myr- 
iads have darted influences upon you, each one of 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 39 

them having some definable tendency. A traveller 
round the globe would not meet a greater variety of 
seasons, prospects, and winds, than you might have 
recorded of the circumstance capable of affecting 
your character, during your journey of life. You 
could not wish to have drawn to yourself the agency 
of a vaster diversity of causes ; you could not wish, 
on the supposition that you had gained advantage from 
all these, to wear the spoils of a greater number of re- 
gions. The formation of the character from so many 
materials reminds one of that mighty appropriating at- 
traction, which, on the fanciful hypothesis that the 
resurrection should reassemble the same particles 
which composed the body before, must draw them from 
dust, and trees, and animals, from ocean, and winds. 

It would scarcely be expected that a being which 
should be conducted through such anarchy of discipline, 
in which the endless crowd of influential powers seem 
waiting, each to take away what the last had given, 
should be permitted to acquire, or to retain, any settled 
form of qualities at all. ^ The more probable result 
would be, either several qualities disagreeing with one 
another, or a blank neutrality. And in fact, a great 
number of nearly such neutralities are found every 
where ; persons, who, unless their sharing of the 
general properties of human nature, a little modified 
by the insignificant distinction of some large class, can 
be called character, have no character. It is therefore 
somewhat strange, if you, and if other individuals, have 
come forth with moral features of a strongly marked 
and consistently combined cast, from the infinity of 
miscellaneous impressions. If the process has been so 
complex, how comes the result to be apparently so 
simple ? How has it happened that the collective efiect 
of these numerous and jarring operations on your mind, 
is that which only a few of these operations would have 
seemed adapted to produce, and quite different from that 
which many others of them should naturally have pro- 



40 ON A man's writing 

duced, and do actually produce in many other persons? 
Here you will perceive that some one capital determi- 
nation must long since have been by some means esta- 
blished in your mind, and that, during your progress, 
this predominant determination has kept you susceptible 
of the effect of some influences, and fortified against 
many others. Now, what was the prevailing determi- 
nation, whence did it come, how did it acquire its 
power ? Was it an original tendency and insuppressible 
impulse of your nature ; or the result of your earliest 
impressions ; or of some one class of impressions 
repeated oftener than any other ; or of one single im- 
pression of extreme force 1 What was it, and whence 
did it come ? This is the great secret in the history of 
character ; for, it is scarcely necessary to observe, that 
as soon as the mind is under the power of a predo- 
minant tendency, the difficulty of growing into the 
maturity of that form of character, which this tendency 
promotes or creates, is substantially over. Because, 
when a determined principle has become ascendant, it 
not only produces a parlial insensibility to all im- 
pressions that would counteract it, but also continually 
augments its own ascendency, by means of a faculty or 
fatality of finding out every thing, and attracting to 
itself every cause of impression, that is adapted to 
coalesce with it and strengthen it ; like the instinct of 
animals, which instantly selects from the greatest 
variety of substances those which are fit for their nu- 
triment. Let a man have some leading and decided 
propensity, and it will be surprising to see how many 
more things he will find, and how many more events 
will happen, than any one could have imagined, of a 
nature to reinforce it. And sometimes even circum- 
stances which seemed of an entirely counteractive 
order, are strangely seduced by this predominant 
principle into an operation that confirms it ; just in the 
same manner as polemics most self-complacently avow 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 41 

their opinions to be more firmly established by the 
strongest objections of the opponent. 

It would be easy to enlarge without end on the 
influences of the surrounding world in forming the 
character of each individual. Yet while there is no 
denying that such influences are effectively operating, 
a man may be unwilling to allow that he has been 
quite so servilely passive, as he would probably find 
that he has been, if it were possible for him to make a 
complete examination. He may be disposed to think 
that this reason has been an independent power, has 
kept a strict watch, and passed a right judgment on 
his moral progress, has met the circumstances of the 
external world on terms of examination and authority, 
and has 'permitted only such impressions to be received, 
or at least only such consequences to follow from them, 
as it wisely approved. But I would tell him, that he 
has been a very extraordinary man, if the greater part 
of his time has not been spent entirely without a thought 
of reflecting what impressions were made on him, or 
what their tendency might be ; and even without a 
consciousness that the effect of any impressions was 
of importance to his moral habits. He may be assured 
that he has been subjected to many gentle gradual 
processes, and has met many critical occasions, on 
which, and on the consequences of which to himself, 
he exercised no attention or opinion. And again, it is 
unfortunately true, that even should attention be awake, 
and opinions be formed, the faculty which forms them 
is very servile to the other parts of the human con- 
stitution. If it could be extrinsic to the man, a kind 
of domestic Pythia, or an attendant genius, like the 
demon of Socrates, it might then be a dignified 
regulator of the influences which are acting on his 
character, to decide what should or should not be per- 
mitted to affect him, and in what manner ; though even 
then its disapproving dictates might fail against some 
extremely powerful impression which might give a 



42 ON A man's writing 

temporary bias, and such repetitions of that impression 
as should confirm it. But the case is, that this faculty, 
though mocked with imperial names, being condemned 
to dwell in the company of far more active powers than 
itself, and earlier exercised, becomes humbly obsequious 
to them. The passions easily beguile this majestic 
reason, or judgment, into neglect, or bribe it into 
acquiescence, or repress it into silence, while they 
receive the impressions, and while they acquire from 
those impressions that determinate direction, which will 
constitute the character. If, after thus much is done 
during the weakness, or without the notice, or without 
the leave, or under the connivance or corruption of 
the judgment, it be called upon to perform its part in 
estimating the quality and actual effect of the modifying 
influences, it has to perform this judicial work with just 
that degree of rectitude which it can have acquired 
and maintained under the operation of those very in- 
fluences. In acting the judge, it is itself in subjection 
to the effect of those impressions of which its office 
was, to have previously decided whether they should 
not be strenuously repelled. Thus its opinions will 
unconsciously be perverted ; like the answers of the 
ancient oracles, dictated for the imaginary god by 
beings of a very terrestrial sort, though the sly inter- 
vention could not be perceived. It is quite a vulgar 
observation, how pleased a man may be with the for- 
mation of his own character, though you smile at the 
gravity of his persuasion, that his tastes, preferences, 
and qualities, have on the whole grown up under the 
sacred and faithful guardianship of judgment, while, in 
fact, his judgment has accepted every bribe that has 
been offered to betray him. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 4S 



LETTER IV 



You will agree with me, that in a comprehensive 
view of the influences which have formed, and are 
forming, the characters of men, we shall find, religion 
excepted, but little cause to felicitate our species. Make 
the supposition that any assortment of persons, of suf- 
ficient number to comprise the most remarkable dis- 
tinctions of character, should write memoirs of them- 
selves, so exactly and honestly telling the story, and ex- 
hibiting so clearly the most effective circumstances, as 
to explain, to your discernment at least, if not to their 
own consciousness, the main process by which their 
minds have attained their present state. If they were 
to read these memoirs to you in succession, and if your 
benevolence could so long be maintained in full exer- 
cise, and your rules for estimating lost nothing of their 
determinate principle in their application to such a con- 
fusion of subjects, you would often, during the disclo- 
sure, regret to observe how many things may be the 
causes of irretrievable mischief Why is the path of 
life, you would say, so haunted as if with evil spirits of 
every diversity of noxious agency, some of which may 
patiently accompany, or others of which may suddenly 
cross, the unfortunate wanderer ? And you would re- 
gret to observe into how many forms of intellectual and 
moral perversion the human mind readily yields itself 
to be modified. 

As one of the number concluded the account of him- 
self, your observation would be, I perceive with com- 
passion the process under which you have become 
a misanthropist. If your juvenile ingenuous ardour 
had not been chilled by your entrance into society, 
where your most favourite sentiments were not at all 
comprehended by some, and by others deemed wise and 
proper enough — perhaps for the people of the millen- 



i4 ON A man's writing 

nium ; if you had not felt the mortification of relations 
being uncongenial, of persons whom you were anxious 
to render happy being indifferent to your kindness, or 
of apparent friendships proving treacherous or trans- 
itory ; if you had not met with such striking instances 
of hopeless stupidity in the vulgar, or of vain self- 
importance in the learned, or of the coarse or super- 
cilious arrogance of the persons whose manners were 
always regulated by the consideration of the proportion 
of gold and silver by which they were better than you ; 
if your mortifications had not given you a keen faculty 
of perceiving the all-pervading selfishness of mankind, 
while, in addition, you had perhaps a peculiar oppor- 
tunity to observe the apparatus of systematic villany. 
by which combinations of men are able to arm their 
selfishness to oppress or ravage the world — you might 
even now, perhaps, have been the persuasive instructor 
of beings, concerning whom you are wondenng why 
they should have been made in the form of rationals ; 
you might have conciliated to yourself and to goodness, 
where you repel and are repelled ; you might have 
been the apostle and pattern of benevolence, instead of 
envying the powers and vocation of a destroying angel. 
Yet not that the world should bear all the blame. 
Frail and changeable in virtue, you might perhaps have 
been good under a series of auspicious circumstances ; 
but the glory had been to be victoriously good against 
malignant ones. Moses lost none of his generous 
concern for a people, on whom you would have invoked 
the waters of Noah or the fires of Sodom to return }; 
and that Greater than Moses, who endured from men 
such a matchless excess of injustice, while for their 
sake alone he sojourned and suffered on earth, was not 
alienated to misanthropy, in his life, or at his death. 

A second sketch might exhibit external circumstan- 
ces not producing any effect more serious than an in- 
tellectual stagnation. When it was concluded, your 
reflection might be. if I did not know that mental 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF, 45 

freedom is a dangerous thing-, peculiarly in situations 
where the possessor would feel it a singular attainment ; 
and if I did not prefer even the quiescence of unex- 
amining belief, when tolerably right in the most ma- 
terial points, to the indifference or scepticism which 
feels no assurance or no importance in any belief, or to 
the weak presumption that darts into the newest and 
most daring opinions as therefore true — I should deplore 
that your hfe was destined to preserve its sedate course 
so entirely unanimated by the intellectual novelties of 
the age, the agitations of ever-moving opinion ; and 
under the habitual and exclusive influence of one in- 
dividual, worthy perhaps and in a certain degree sen- 
sible, but of contracted views, whom you have been 
taught and accustomed to regard as the comprehensive 
repository of all the truth requisite for you to know, 
and from whom you have derived, as some of your 
chief acquisitions, a contented assurance that the trouble 
of inquiry is needless, and a superstitious horror of in- 
novation, without even knowing what points are threat- 
ened by it. 

At the end of another' s disclosure, you would say, 
How unfortunate, that you could not believe there 
might be respectable and valuable men, who were not 
born to be wits or poets. And how unfortunate were 
those first evenings that you were privileged to listen 
to a company of men, who could say more fine things 
in an hour than their biographers will be able, even with 
the customary aid of laudatory fiction, to record them 
to have done in the whole space of life. It was then 
you discovered that you too were of the progeny of 
Apollo, and that you had been iniquitous^ transferred 
at your nativity into the hands of ignorant foster-parents, 
who had endeavoured to degrade and confine you to 
the sphere of regular employments and sober satisfac- 
tions. But, you would " tower up to the region of 
your sire." You saw what wonderful things might be 
found to be said on all subjects ; you found it not so 



46 ON A man's writing ' 

very difficult yourself to say different things from other 
people : and every thing that was not common dulness, 
was therefore pointed, — every thing that was not sense 
by any vulgar rule, was therefore sublime. You adopted i! 
a certain vastitude of phrase, mistaking extravagance 
of expression for greatness of thought. You set your- 
self to dogmatize on books, and the abilities of men, 
but especially on their prejudices; and perhaps to de- 
molish, with the air of an exploit, some of the trite ob- 
servations and maxims current in society. You awa- 
kened and surprised your imagination, by imposing on 
it a strange new tax of colours and metaphors ; a tax 
reluctantly and uncouthly paid, but perhaps in some 
one instance so luckily, as to gain the applause of the 
gifted (if they were not merely eccentric) men, into 
whose company you had been elated by admittance 
This was to you the proof and recognition of fraternity : 
and it has since been the chief question that has inter- 
ested you with each acquaintance and in each company, 
whether they too could perceive what you were so hap- 
py to have discovered, yet so anxious that the acknow- 
ledgment of others should confirm. Your own persua- 
sion, however, became as pertinacious as ivy climbing 
a wall. It was almost of course to attend to necessary 
pursuits with reluctant irregularity, though suffering 
by the consequences of neglecting them, and to feel 
indignant that genius should be reproached for the dis- 
regard of these ordinary duties and employments to 
which it ought never to have been subjected. 

During a projector's story of life and misfortunes, 
you might regret that he should ever have heard of 
Harrison's time-piece, the perpetual motion, or the Greek 
fire. 

After an antiquary's history, you might be allowed 
to congratulate yourself on not having fallen under the 
spell which confines a human soul to inhabit, like a 
spider in one of the corners, a dusty room, consecrated 
with religious solemnity to old coins, rusty knives, 11* 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 47 

luminated mass books, swords and spurs of forgotten 
kings, and slippers of their queens; with perhaps a 
Roman helmet, the acquisition of which was the first 
cause of the collection and of the passion, elevated im- 
perially over the relics of kings and queens and the 
whole museum, as the eagle was once in " proud emi- 
nence" over subjugated kingdoms. And you might be 
inclined to say, I wish that helmet had been a pan for 
charcoal, or had been put on the head of one of the quite 
equestrian warriors in the Tower, or had aided the 
rattlings of Sir Godfrey, haunting the baron's castle 
where he was murdered, or had been worn by Don 
Gluixote, instead of the barber's basin, or had been the 
cauldron of Macbeth's witches, or had been in any 
other shape, place, or use, rather than dug up an anti- 
quity, in a luckless hour, in a bank near your garden. 
I compassionate you, vv^ould, in a very benevolent 
hour, be your language to the wealthy unfeeling tyrant 
of a family and a neighbourhood^ who seeks, in the 
overawed timidity and unretaliated injuries of the un- 
fortunate beings within his power, the gratification that 
should have been sought in their happiness. Unless 
you had brought into the world some extraordinary re- 
fractoriness to the influence of evil, the process that 
you have undergone could not fail of being efficacious. 
If your parents idolized their own importance in their 
son so much, that they never themselves opposed your 
inclinations, nor permitted it to be done by any subject 
to their authority ; if the humble companion sometimes 
summoned to the honour of amusing you, bore your 
caprices and insolence with the meekness without which 
he had lost his privilege ; if you could despoil the gar- 
den of some harmless dependent neighbour of the care- 
fully reared flowers, and torment his little dog or cat, 
without his daring to punish you or to appeal to your 
infatuated parents ; if aged men addressed you in a 
submissive tone, and with the appellation of " Sir," and 
their aged wives uttered their wonder at your conde- 



48 ON A man's writing 

sceiision, and pushed their grandchildren away from 
around the fire for your sake, if you happened, though 
with the strut of supercihous pertness, and your hat on 
your head, to enter one of their cottages, perhaps to 
express your contempt of the homely dwelling, furni- 
ture, and fare ; if, in maturer life, you associated with 
vile persons, who would forego the contest of equality, 
to be your allies in trampling on inferiors ; and if, both 
then and since, you have been suffered to deem your 
wealth the compendium or equivalent of every ability, 
and every good quality — it would indeed be immensely 
strange if you had not become, in due time, the mis- 
creant, who may thank the power of the laws in civil- 
ized society, that he is not assaulted with clubs and 
stones ; to whom one could cordially wish the oppor- 
tunity and the consequences of attempting his tyranny 
among some such people as those submissive sons of 
nature in the forests of North America ; and whose 
dependents and domestic relations may be almost for- 
given when they shall one day rejoice at his funeral. 



LETTER V. 

I WILL imagine only one case more, on which you 
would emphatically express your compassion, though 
for one of the most daring beings in the creation, a 
co7itemner of God, who explodes his laws by denying 
his existence. 

If you were so unacquainted with mankind, that 
such a being might be announced to you as a rare or 
singular phenomenon, your conjectures, till you saw 
and heard the man, at the nature and the extent of the 
discipline through which he must have advanced, would 
be led toward something extraordinary. And you 
might think that the term of that discipline must have 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 49 

been very long- ; since a quick train of impressions, a 
short series of mental gradations, within the little space 
of a few months and years, would not seem enough to 
have matured such a portentous heroism. Surely the 
creature that thus lifts his voice, and defies all invisi- 
i ble power within the possibilities of infinity, challeng- 
i ing whatever unknown being may hear him, and may 
appropriate that title of Almighty which is pronounced 
in scorn, to evince his existence, if he will, by his ven- 
geance, was not as yesterday a little child that would 
tremble and cry at the approach of a diminutive rep- 
tile. 

But indeed it is heroism no longer, if he know that 
there is no God. The wonder then turns on the great 
process, by which a man could grow to the immense 
intelligence which can know that there is no God. 
What ages and what lights are requisite for this 
attainment ! This intelligence involves the very attri- 
butes of Divinity, while a God is denied. For unless 
this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in 
every place in the universe, he cannot know but there 
may be in some place manifestations of a Deity, by 
which even he would be overpowered. If he does not 
know absolutely every agent in the universe, the one 
that he does not know may be God. If he is not 
himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not 
know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he 
is not in absolute possession of all the propositions 
that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants 
may be, that there is a God. If he cannot with cer- 
tainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, 
that cause may be a God. If he does not know -.very 
thing that has been done in the immeasurable ag s that 
are past, some things may have been done by a God. 
Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes all 
other divine existence by being Deity himself, he 
cannot know that the Being whose existence he re- 
jects, does not exist. But he must know that he does 
5 



50 ON A 

not exist, else he deserves equal contempt and compas- 
sion for the temerity with which he firmly avows his 
rejection and acts accordingly. And yet a man of or- 
dinary age and intelligence may present himself to 
you with the avowal of being thus distinguished from 
the crowd ; and if he would describe the manner in 
which he has attained this eminence, you would feel a 
melancholy interest in contemplating that process of 
which the result is so prodigious. 

If you did not know that there are more than a few 
such examples, you would say, in viewing this result, 
I should hope this is the consequence of some malig- 
nant intervention so occasional that ages may pass 
away before it return among men ; some peculiar con- 
junction of disastrous influences must have lighted on 
your selected soul ; you have been struck by that 
energy of evil which acted upon the spirits of Pharaoh 
and Epiphanes. But give your own description of 
what you have met with, in a world which has been 
deemed to present in every part the indications of a 
Deity. Tell of the mysterious voices which have 
spoken to you from the deeps of the creation, falsifying 
the expressions marked on its face. Tell of the new 
ideas, which, like meteors passing over the solitary 
wanderer, gave you the first glimpses of truth while 
benighted in the common behef of the Divine exis- 
tence. Describe the whole train of causes which have 
operated to create and consolidate that state of mind, 
which you carry forward to the great experiment of 
futurity under a different kind of hazard from all other 
classes of men. 

It would be found, however, that those circum- 
stances by which even a man who had been presented 
from his infancy with the ideas of religion, could be 
elated into a contempt of its great object, were far from 
being extraordinary. They might have been incident 
to any man, whose mind had been cultivated and ex- 
ercised enough to feel interested about holding any 



MEMOIRS OF fflMSELF. 51 

system of opinions at all ; whose pride had been grat- 
ified in the consciousness of having the liberty of se- 
lecting and changing opinions ; and whose habitual 
assent to the principles of religion, had neither the^ 
firmness resulting from decisive arguments, nor the 
warmth of pious affection.* Such a person had only, in 
the first place, to come into intimate acquaintance with 
a man, who had the art of alluring to a sacred subject 
in a manner which, without appearing like intentional 
contempt, divested it of its solemnity : and who had 
possessed himself of a kw acute observations or plau- 
sible maxims, not explicitly hostile to revealed religion, 

* It will be obvious that I am describing the progress of one of 
the humbler order of aliens from all religion, and not that by which 
the great philosophic leaders have ascended the dreary eminence 
where they look with so much complacency up to a vacant heaven, 
and down to the gulf of annihilation. Their progress undoubted- 
ly is much more systematic and deliberate, and accompanied often 
by a laborious speculation, which, though in ever so perverted a 
train, the mind is easily persuaded to identify, because it is labori- 
ous, with the search after truth and the love of it. While, how- 
ever, it is in a persevering train of thought, and not by the hasty 
movements of a more vulgar mind, that they pursue their deviation 
from some of the principles of religion into a final abandonment of 
it all, they are very greatly mistaken if they assure themselves that 
the moral causes which contribute to guide and animate their prog- 
ress are all of a sublime order ; and if they could be fully revealed 
to their own view, they might perhaps be severely mortified to find 
what vulgar motives, while they were despising vulgar men, have 
ruled their intellectual career. Pride, which idolizes self, which 
revolts at every thing that comes in the form of dictates, and ex- 
ults to find that there is a possibihty of controverting whether 
any dictates come from a greater than mortal source ; repugnance 
as well to the severe and comprehensive morality of the laws re- 
puted of divine appointment, as to the feeling of accountableness 
to an all-powerful Authority, that will not leave moral laws to be 
enforced solely by their own sanctions ; contempt of inferior men ; 
the attraction of a few brilliant examples ; the fashion of a class ; 
the ambition of showing what ability can do, and what boldness 
can dare — if such things as these, after all, have excited and di- 
rected the efforts of a philosophic spirit, the unbeUeving philosopher 
must be content to acknowledge plenty of companions and rivals 
among Uttle men, who are quite as capable of being actuated by 
Buch elevated principles as himself. 



52 ON A man's writing 

but which, when opportunely brought into view in 
connexion with some points of it, tended to throw a 
degree of doubt on their truth and authority. Espe- 
cially if either or both of these men had any decided 
moral tendencies and pursuits of a kind which Chris- 
tianity condemned, the friend of intellectual and moral 
freedom was assiduous to insinuate, that, according to 
the principles of reason and nature at least, it would 
be difficult to prove the wisdom or the necessity of 
some of those dictates of religion, which must, how- 
ever, be admitted, be respected, because divine. Let 
the mind have once acquired a feeling, as if the sacred 
system might in some points be invalidated, and the^ 
involuntary inference would be rapidly extended to 
other parts, and to the whole. Nor was it long pro- 
bably before this new instructor plainly avowed his 
own entire emancipation from a popular prejudice, to 
which he was kindly sorry to find a sensible young 
man still in captivity. But he had no doubt that the 
deductions of enlightened reason would successfully ap- 
peal to every liberal mind. And accordingly, after 
perhaps a few months of frequent intercourse, with the 
addition of two or three books, and the ready aid of 
all the recollected vices of pretended christians, and 
pretended christian churches, the whole venerable mag- 
nificence of revelation was annihilated. Its illumina- 
tions respecting the Divinity, its miracles, its Messiah, 
its authority of moral legislation, its regions of immor- 
tality and retribution, the sublime virtues and devotion 
of its prephets, apostles, and martyrs, together with 
the reasonings of so many accomplished advocates, and 
the credibility of history itself were vanished all away ; 
while the convert, exulting in his disenchantment, felt 
a strange pleasure to behold nothing but a dreary train 
of impostures and credulity stretching over those past 
ages which lately appeared a scene of divine govern- 
ment ; and the thickest Egyptian shades fallen on that 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 53 

total vast futurity toward which the spirit of inspiration 
had thrown some grand though partial gleams. 

Nothing tempts the mind so powerfully on, as to 
have successfully begun to demolish what has been 
long regarded as most sacred. The soldiers of Caesar 
probably had never felt themselves so brave, as after 
they had cut down the Massilian grove ; nor the Phil- 
istines, as when the ark of the God of Israel was 
among their spoils : the mind is proud of its triumphs 
in proportion to the reputed greatness of what it has 
overcome. And many examples would seem to in- 
dicate, that the first proud triumphs over religious 
faith, involve some fatality of advancing, however for- 
midable the mass of arguments which may obstruct 
the progress, to further victories. But perhaps the in- 
tellectual difficulty of the progress might be less than 
a zealous believer would be apt to imagine. As the 
ideas which give the greatest distinctness to our con- 
ception of a Divine Being are imparted by revelation, 
and rest on its authority, the rejection of that revelation 
would in a great measure banish those ideas, and de- 
stroy that distinctness. We have but to advert to pure 
heathenism, to perceive what a faint conception of this 
Being could be formed by the strongest intellect in the 
absence of revelation ; and after the rejection of it, the 
mind would naturally be carried very far back toward 
that darkness ; so that some of the attributes of the De- 
ity would immediately become, as they were with the 
heathens, subjects of doubtful conjecture and hopeless 
speculation. But from this state of thought it is per- 
haps no vast transition to that, in which his being also 
shall begin to appear a subject of doubt ; since the real- 
ity of a being is with difficulty apprehended, in propor- 
tion as its attributes are undefinable. And when the 
mind is brought into doubt, we know it easily advan- 
ces to disbelief, if to the smallest plausibility of argu- 
ments be added any powerful moral cause for wishing 
such a conclusion. In the present case, there might 
5* 



54 ON A 

be a very powerful cause, besides that pride of victory 
which 1 have just noticed. The progress in guilt, 
which generally follows a rejection of revelation, 
makes it still more and more desirable that no object 
ghould remain to be feared. It was not strange, there- 
fore, if this man read with avidity, or even strange if 
he read with something which his wishes completed 
into conviction, a few of the writers, who have attempt- 
ed the last achievement of presumptuous man. After 
mspecting these pages awhile, he raised his eyes, and 
the Great Spirit was gone. Mighty transformation of 
all things ! The luminaries of heaven no longer shone 
with his splendour ; the adorned earth no longer looked 
fair with his beauty ; the darkness of night had ceased 
to be rendered solemn by his majesty; ]ife and thought 
were not an effect of his all-pervading energy ; it was 
not his providence that supported an infinite charge of 
dependent beings; his empire of justice no longer 
spread over the universe ; nor had even that universe 
sprung from his all-creating power. Yet when you 
saw the intellectual course brought to this signal con- 
clusion, though aware of the force of each preceding 
and predisposing circumstance, you might nevertheless 
be somewhat struck with the suddenness of the final 
decision, and might be curious to know what kind of 
argument and eloquence coukl so quickly finish the 
work. You would examine those pages with the ex- 
pectation probably of something more powerful than 
subtlety attenuated into inanity, and, in that invisible 
and impalpable state, mistaken by the writer, and will- 
ingly admitted by the perverted reader, for profundity 
of reasoning ; than attempts to destroy the certainty, or 
preclude the application, of some of those great familiar 
principles which must be taken as the basis of human 
reasoning, or it can have no basis ; than suppositions 
which attribute the order of the universe to such causes 
as it would be felt ridiculous to pronounce adequate to 
produce the most trifling piece of mechanism; than 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 55 

mystical jargon which, under the name of nature^ al- 
ternately exalts almost into the properties of a god, and 
reduces far below those of a man, some imaginary and 
undefinable agent or agency, which performs the most 
amazing works without power, and displays the most 
amazing wisdom without intelligence ; than a zealous 
preference of that part of every great dilemma which 
merely confounds and sinks the mind to that which 
elevates while it overwhelms it ; than a constant en- 
deavour to degrade as far as possible every thing that 
is sublime in our speculations and feelings ; or than 
monstrous parallels between religion and mythology. 
You would be still more unprepared to expect on so 
solemn a subject the occasional wit, or affectation of 
wit, which would seem rather prematurely expressive 
of exultation that the grand Foe is retiring. 

A feeling of complete certainty would hardly be thus 
rapidly attained ; .but a slight degree of remaining 
doubt, and of consequent apprehension, would not pre- 
vent this disciple of darkness from accepting the invi- 
tation to pledge himself to the cause in some associated 
band, where profaneness and vice would consolidate 
impious opinions without the aid of augmented convic- 
tion ; and where the fraternity, having been elated by 
the spirit of social daring to say, What is the Almighty 
that we should serve him ? the individuals might ac- 
quire each a firmer boldness to exclaim. Who is the 
Lord that / should obey his voice ? Thus easy it is, 
my friend, for a man to meet that train of influences 
which may seduce him to live an infidel, though it 
may betray him to die a terrified believer ; of which 
the infatuation, while it promises him the impunity of 
non-existence, and degrades him to desire it, impels him 
to fill the measure of his iniquity, till the divine wrath 
come upon him to the uttermost. 



66 ON A man's writing 



LETTER VI. 

In recounting so many influences that operate on 
man, it is grievous to observe that the incomparably- 
noblest of all, religion, is counteracted with a fatal suc- 
cess by a perpetual conspiracy of almost all the rest, 
aided by the intrinsic predisposition of this our per- 
verted nature, which yields itself with such consenting 
facility, to every impression tending to estrange it still 
further from God. 

It is a cause for wonder and sorrow, to see millions 
of rational creatures growing into their permanent 
habits, under the conforming efficacy of every thing 
which it were good for them to resist, and receiving no 
part of those habits from impressions of the Supreme 
Object. They are content that a narrow scene of a 
diminutive world, with its atoms and evils, should usurp 
and deprave and finish their education for endless 
existence, while the Infinite Spirit is here, whose sacred 
energy, received on their minds, might create the most 
excellent condition of their nature, and, in defiance of 
a thousand malignant forces attempting to stamp on 
them an opposite image, convey them into eternity in 
his likeness. Oh. why is it so possible that this greatest 
inhabitant of every place where men are living, should 
be the last to whose society they are attracted, or of 
whose continual presence they feel the importance ? 
Why is it possible to be surrounded with the intelligent 
Reality, which exists wherever we are, with attributes 
that are infinite, and not feel respecting all other things 
which may be attempting to press on our minds and 
affect their character, as if they retained with difficulty 
their shadows of existence, and were continually on 
the point of vanishing into nothing? Why is this 
stupendous Power so unperceived and silent, while 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 57 

present, over all the scenes of the earth, and in all the 
paths and abodes of men ? Why does he keep his 
glory veiled behind the shades and visions of the 
material world ? Why does not this latent glory some- 
times beam forth with such a manifestation as could 
never be forgotten, nor could ever be remembered 
without an emotion of religious awe ? And why, in 
contempt of all that he has displayed to excite either 
fear or love, is it still possible for a rational creature so 
to live, that it must finall}^ come to an interview with 
him in a character completed by the full assemblage of 
those acquisitions, which have separately been disap- 
proved by him through every stage of the accumu- 
lation? Why is it possible for feeble creatures to 
maintain their little dependent beings fortified and 
invincible in sin, amidst the presence of essential 
purity ? Why does not the apprehension of such a 
Being strike through the mind with such intense anti- 
pathy to evil, as to blast with death every active prin- 
ciple that is beginning to pervert it, and render gradual 
additions of depravity, growing into the solidity of 
habit, as impossible as for perishable materials to be 
raised into structures amidst the fires of the last day ? 
How is it possible to escape the solicitude, which 
should be inseparable from the knowledge that the 
beams of all-searching intelligence are continually 
darting on us, and pervading us ; that we are exposed 
to the piercing inspection, compared to which the 
concentrated attention of all the beings in the universe 
besides, would be but as the powerless gaze of an 
infant ? Why is faith, that faculty of spiritual appre- 
hension, so absent, or so incomparably less perceptive 
of the grandest of its objects, than the senses are of 
theirs? While there is a Spirit in infinite energy 
through the universe, why have the few particles of 
dust which enclose our spirits the power to intercept all 
sensible communication with him, and to place them 



58 ON A man's writing 

as in a vacuity, where the sovereign Essence had been 
precluded or extinguished ? 

The reverential submission, with which you con- 
template the mystery of omnipotent benevolence for- 
bearing to exert the agency, which could assume an 
.instantaneous ascendancy in every mind over the causes 
of depravation and ruin, will not avert your compassion 
from the unhappy persons who are practically " without 
God in the world." And if your intellect could be 
enlarged to a capacity for comprehending the whole 
measure and depth of disaster contained in this ex- 
clusion, (an exclusion under which a human being 
having the full and fearful truth of his situation revealed 
to him would behold, as relatively to his happiness, the 
whole resources of the creation sunk as into dust and 
ashes, and all the causes of joy and hope reduced to 
insipidity and lost in despair,) you would feel a dis- 
tressing emotion at each recital of a life in which 
religion had no share : and you would be tempted to 
wish that some spirit from the other world, empowered 
with an eloquence that might threaten to alarm the 
slumbers of the dead, would throw himself in the way 
of this one mortal, and this one more, to protest, in 
sentences of lightning and thunder, against the infatua- 
tion that can at once acknowledge there is a God, and 
be content to forego every connexion with him, but 
that of danger. You would wish they should rather 
be assailed by the " terror of the Lord," in whatever 
were its most appalling form, than retain the satisfac- 
tion of carelessness till the day of his mercy be past. 

But you will need no such enlargement of compre- 
hension, in order to compassionate the situation of per- 
sons who, with reason sound to think, and hearts not 
strangers to feeling, have advanced far into life, per- 
haps near to its close, without having felt the influence 
of religion. If there is such a Being as we mean by 
the term God, the ordinary intelligence of a serious 
mind will be quite enough to see that it must be a 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 59 

melancholy thing to pass through life, and quit it, just 
as if there were not. And sometimes it will appear 
as strange as it is melancholy ; especially to a person 
who has been pious from his youth. He would be 
inclined to say to a person who has nearly finished an 
irreligious life, What would have been justly thought 
of you, if you could have been habilually in the soci- 
ety of the wisest and best men on earth, and have ac- 
quire^ no degree of conformity ; much more, if you 
could all the while have acquired progressively the 
meanness, prejudices, follies, and vices, of the lowest 
society, with which you might have been at intervals 
thrown in unavoidable contact? You might have 
been asked how that was possible. But then through 
what fatality have you been able, during so many 
years spent in the presence of a God, to continue even 
to this hour as clear of all signs of assimilation or im- 
pression as if the Deity were but a poetical fiction, or 
an idol in some temple of Asia ? — Evidently, as the 
immediate cause, through want of thought concern- 
ing him. 

And why did you not think of him ? Did a most 
solemn thought of him never once penetrate your soul, 
while admitting it true that there is such a Being ? If 
it never did, what is reason, what is mind, what is 
man ? If it did once, how could its effects stop there ? 
How could a deep thought on so transcendent a subject, 
fail to impose on the mind a permanent necessity of 
frequently recalling it ; as some awful or magnificent 
spectacle would haunt you with a long recurrence of 
its image, even were the spectacle itself seen no more ? 

Why did you not think of him ? How could you 
estimate so meanly your mind with all its capacities, 
as to feel no regret that an endless series of trifles 
should seize, and occupy as their right, all your 
thoughts, and deny them both the liberty and the am- 
bition of going on to the greatest Object? How, 
while called to the contemplations which absorb the 



60 ON A man's writing 

spirits of Heaven, could you be so patient of the task 
of counting the flies of a summer's day 1 

Why did you not think of him ? You knew yourself 
to be in the hands of some Being from whose power 
you could not be withdrawn ; was it not an equal defect 
of curiosity and prudence to indulge a careless con- 
fidence that sought no acquaintance with his nature, 
as regarded in itself and in its aspect on his creatures ; 
nor ever anxiously inquired what conduct should be 
observed toward him, and what expectations might be 
entertained from him ? You would have been alarm- n 
ed to have felt yourself in the power of a mysterious 
stranger, of your own feeble species ; but let the 
stranger be omnipotent, and you cared no more. 

Why did you not think of him 1 One would deem 
that the thought of him must, to a serious mind, 
come second to almost every thought. The thought 
of virtue would suggest the thought of both a lawgiver 
and a rewarder ; the thought of crime, of an avenger ; 
the thought of sorrow, of a consoler ; the thought of 
an inscrutable mystery, of an intelligence that under- 
stands it; the thought of that ever-moving activity 
which prevails in the system of the universe, of a su- 
preme agent ; the thought of the human family, of a 
great father ; the thought of all being not necessary 
and self-existent, of a creator ; the thought of life, of a 
preserver ; and the thought of death, of an uncontrol- 
lable disposer. By what dexterity, therefore, of irre- 
ligious caution, did you avoid precisely every track 
where the idea of him would have met you, or elude 
that idea if it came ? And what must sound reason 
pronounce of a mind which, in the train of .miUions 
of thoughts, has wandered to all things under the sun, 
to all the permanent objects or vanishing appearances 
in the creation, but never fixed its thought on the Su- 
preme Reality ; never approached, like Moses, " to see 
this great sight?" 

If it were a thing which we might be allowed to 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 61 

imagine, that the Divine Being were to manifest him- 
self in some striking manner to the senses, as by some 
resplendent appearance at the midnight hour, or by 
rekindling on an elevated momitain the long extin- 
guished fires of Sinai, and uttering voices from those 
fires ; would he not compel from you an attention 
which you now refuse ? Yes, you will say, he would 
then seize the mind with irresistible force, and religion 
would become its most absolute sentiment ; but he only 
presents himself to faith. Well, and is it a worthy 
reason for disregarding him, that you only believe him 
to be present and infinitely glorious ? Is it the office 
of faith to veil, to frustrate, to annihilate in effect, its 
object? Cannot you reflect, that the grandest repre- 
sentation of a spiritual and divine Being to the senses 
would bear not only no proportion to his glory, but no 
relation to his nature ; and could be adapted only to 
an inferior dispensation of religion, and to a people 
who, with the exception of a most extremely small 
number of men, had been totally untaught to carry 
their thoughts beyond the objects of sense? Are you 
not aware, that such a representation would consider- 
ably tend to restrict you in your contemplation to a de- 
fined image, and therefore a most inadequate and sub- 
ordinate idea of the divine Being ? while the idea ad- 
mitted by faith, though less immediately striking, is 
capable of an illimitable expansion, by the addition of 
all that progressive thought can accumulate, under the 
continual certainty that all is still infinitely short of the 
reality. 

On the review of a character thus grown, in the 
exclusion of the religious influences, to the nature and 
perhaps ultimate state, the sentiment of pious benev- 
olence would be, — I regard you as ari object of great 
compassion, unless there can be no felicity in friend- 
ship with the Almighty, unless there be no glory in 
being assimilated to his excellence, unless there be no 
eternal rewards for his devoted servants, unless there 
6 



62 ON A man's writing 

be no danger in meeting him, at length, after a life 
estranged equally from his love and his fear. I deplore, 
at every period and crisis in the review of your life, 
that religion was not there. If that had been there, 
your youthful animation would neither have been dis- 
sipated in the frivolity which, in the morning of the 
short day of life, fairly and formally sets aside all se- 
rious business for that day, nor would have sprung for- 
ward into the emulation of vice, or the bravery of pro- 
faneness. If rehgion had been there, that one despi- 
cable companion, and that other malignant one, would 
not have seduced you into their society, or would not 
have retained you to share their degradation. And if 
religion had accompanied the subsequent progress of 
your life, it would have elevated you to rank, at this 
hour, with those saints who will soon be added to " the 
spirits of the just." Instead of which, what are you 
now, and what are your expectations as looking to that 
world, where piety alone can hope to find such a se- 
quel of existence, as will inspire exultation in the ret- 
rospect of this introductory life, in which the spirit 
took its impress for eternity from communication with 
God? 

On the other hand, it would be interesting to record, 
or to hear, the history of a character which has receiv- 
ed its form, and reached its maturity, under the strong- 
est efficacy of religion. We do not know that there is 
a more beneficent or a more direct mode of the divine 
agency in any part of the creation than that which 
" apprehends" a man, (as apostolic language expresses 
it,) amidst the unthinking crowd, constrains him to se- 
rious reflection, subdues him under persuasive convic- 
tion, elevates him to devotion, and matures him in pro- 
gressive virtue, in order to his passing finally to a no- 
bler state of existence. When he has long been com- 
manded by this influence, he will be happy to look 
back to its first operations, whether they were mingled 
in early life almost insensibly with his feelings, or 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 63 

came on him with mighty force at some particular 
time, and in connexion with some assignable and me- 
morable circumstance which was apparently the in- 
strumental cause. He will trace the progress of this 
Kis better life, with grateful acknowledgment to the 
sacred power that has wrought him to a confirmation 
of religious habit which puts the final seal on his char- 
acter. In the great majority of things, habit is a great- 
er plague than ever afilicted Egypt ; in religious char- 
acter, it is eminently a felicity. The devout man ex- 
ults to feel that in aid of the simple i&'ZQ of the divine 
principles within him, there has grown by time an 
accessional power, which has almost taken place of his 
will, and holds a firm though quiet domination through 
the general action of his mind. He feels this confirm- 
ed habit as the grasp of the hand of God, which will 
never let him go. From this advanced state he looks 
with confidence on futurity, and says, I carry the in- 
delible mark upon me that I belong to God ; by being 
devoted to him I am free of the universe ; and I am 
ready to go to any world to which he shall please to 
transmit me, certain that every where, in height or 
depth, he will acknowledge me for ever. 



LETTER VII. 

The preceding letters have attempted to exhibit only 
general views of the influences, by which a reflective 
man may perceive the moral condition of his mind to 
have been determined. 

In descending into more particular illustrations, there 
would have been no end of enumerating the local cir- 
cumstances, the relationships of life, the professions 
and employments, and the accidental "events, which 
may have affected the character. A person who feels 



64 ON A man's writing 

any interest, in reviewing what has formed thus far his 
education for futurity, may carry his own examination 
into the most distinct particularity. — A few miscella- 
neous observations will conclude the essay. 

You will have observed that I have said compara- 
tively little of that which forms the exterior, and in 
general account the main substance, of the history of a 
man's life — the train of his fortunes and actions. If an 
adventurer or a soldier writes memoirs of himself for 
the information or amusement of the public, he may do 
well to keep his narrative alive by a constant crowded 
course of facts ; for the greater part of his readers will 
excuse him the trouble of investigating, and he might 
occasionally feel it a convenience to be excused from 
disclosing, if he had investigated, the history and mer- 
its of his internal principles. Nor can this ingenuous- 
ness be any part of his duty, any more than it is that 
of an exhibiter in a public show, as long as he tells all 
that probably he professes to tell — where he has been, 
what he has witnessed, and the more reputable portion 
of what he has done. Let him go on with his lively 
anecdotes, or his legends of the marvellous, or his ga- 
zettes of marches, stratagems and skirmishes, and there 
is no obligation for him to turn either penitent or phi- 
losopher on our hands. — But I am supposing a man to 
retrace himself through his past life, in order to ac- 
quire a deep self-knowledge, and to record the investi- 
gation for his own instruction. Through such a ret- 
rospective examination, the exterior life will hold but 
the second place in attention, as being the imperfect 
offspring of that internal state, which it is the primary 
and more difficult object to review. From an effectual 
inquisition into this inner man, the investigator may 
proceed outward, to the course of his actions ; of which 
he will thus have become qualified to form a much 
juster estimate, than he could by any exercise of judg- 
ment upon them regarded merely as exterior facts. No 
doubt that sometimes also, in a contrary process, the 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 65 

judgment will be directed upon the dispositions and 
principles within by a consideration of the actions with- 
out, which will serve as a partial explication of the in- 
terior character. Still it is that interior character, 
whether displayed in actions or not, which forms the 
leading object of inquiry. The chief circumstances 
of his practical life will, however, require to be noted, 
both for the purpose of so much illustration as they 
will afford of the state of his mind, and because they 
mark the points, and distinguish the stages, of his 
progress. 

Though in memoirs intended for publication, a large 
share of incident and action would generally be neces- 
sary, yet there are some men whose mental history 
alone might be very interesting to reflective readers ; 
as, for instance, that of a thinking man, remarkable 
for a number of complete changes of his speculative 
system. From observing the usual tenacity of views 
once deliberately adopted in mature life, we regard as 
a curious phenomenon the man whose mind has been 
a kind of caravansera of opinions, entertained awhile, 
and then sent on pilgrimage ; a man who has admired 
and dismissed systems with the same facility with 
which John Buncle found, adored, married, and in- 
terred, his succession of wives, each one being, for the 
time, not only better than all that went before, but the 
best in the world. You admire the versatile aptitude 
of a mind, sliding into successive forms of belief, in 
this intellectual metempsychosis by which it animates 
so many new bodies of doctrines in their turn. And 
as none of those dying pangs which hurt you in a tale 
of India, attend the desertion of each of these specula- 
tive forms which the soul has awhile inhabited, you 
are extremely amused by the number of transmigra- 
tions, and curious to see what is to be the next ; for 
you never reckon on the present state of such a man's 
views, as to be for permanence, unless perhaps when 
he has terminated his course of believing every thing, 
6* 



66 ON A man's writing 

in ultimately believing nothing. Even then, unless 
he be very old, or feel more pride in being a sceptic, 
the conqueror of all systems, than he ever felt in being 
the champion of one, even then, it is very possible he 
may spring up again, like an igneous vapour from a 
bog, and glimmer through new mazes, or retrace his 
course through half of those he went errant through 
before. You will observe, that no respect is attached 
to this Proteus of opinion, after his changes have been 
multiplied ; as no party expect him to remain with 
them, or account him much of an acquisition if he 
should. One, or perhaps two, considerable changes, 
will be regarged as signs of a liberal inquirer, and there- 
fore the party to which his first or his second intellectual 
conversion maj'- assign him, will receive him gladly. 
But he will be deemed to have abdicated the dignity of 
reason, when it is found that he can adopt no principles 
but to betray them ; and it will be perhaps justly sus- 
pected that there is something extremely infirm in the 
structure of that mind, whatever vigour may mark some 
of its operations, to which a series of very different and 
sometimes contrasted theories, can appear in succession 
demonstratively true, and which imitates sincerely the 
perverseness which Petruchio only affected, declaring 
that which was yesterday, to a certainty, the sun, to be 
to-day, as certainly, the moon. 

It would be curious to observe in a man who should 
make such an exhibition of the course of his mind, the 
sly deceit of self-love. While he despises the system 
which he has rejected, it must not imply so great a 
want of sense in him once to have embraced it, as in 
the rest, who were then or are now its adherents and 
advocates. No, in him it was no debility of intellect, 
it was at most but its immaturity or temporary lapse; 
and probably he is prepared to explain to you that such 
peculiar circumstances, as might warp a very strong 
and liberal mind, attended his consideration of the 



MEMOIRS OP HIMSELF. 67 

subject, and misled him to admit the belief of what 
others prove themselves fools by believing. 

Another thing- apparent in a record of changed 
opinions would be, what I have noticed before, that 
there is scarcely any such thing in the world as simple 
conviction. It would be amusing to observe how the 
judgment had, in one instance, been overruled into 
acquiescence by the admiration of a celebrated name, 
or in another, into opposition by the envy of it : how 
most opportunely judgment discovered the truth just 
at the time that interest could be essentially served by 
avowing it ; how easily the impartial examiner could 
be induced to adopt some part of another man's 
opinions, after that other had zealously approved some 
favourite, especially if unpopular part of his ; as the 
Pharisees almost became partial even to Christ, at the 
moment that he defended one of their doctrines against 
the Sadducees. It would be curious to see how a 
respectful estimate of a man's character and talents 
might be changed in consequence of some personal 
inattention experienced from him, into depreciating 
invective against him or his intellectual performances, 
and yet the railer, though actuated solely by petty 
revenge, account himself, all the while, the model of 
equity and sound judgment.* It might be seen how 
the patronage of power could elevate miserable pre- 
judices into revered wisdom, while poor old Experience 
was mocked with thanks for her instruction ; and how 
the vicinity and society of the rich, and as they are 
termed, great, could perhaps transmute a mind that 
seemed to be of the stern consistence of the early 
Roman republic, into the gentlest wax on which Cor- 
ruption could wish to imprint the venerable creed, 
" The right divine of kings to govern wrong," with the 
pious and loyal inference of the flagrant iniquity of 
expelling Tarquin. I 'am supposing the observer to 

* I remember several remarkable instances of this. 



68 ON A 

perceive all these accommodating dexterities of reason; 
for it were probably absurd to expect that any mind 
should itself be able, in its review, to detect all its ovvn 
obliquities, after having been so long beguiled, like the 
mariners in a story which I remember to have read, 
who followed the direction of their compass, infallibly 
right as they could have no doubt, till they arrived at 
an enemy's port, where they were seized and made 
slaves. It happened that the wicked captain, in order 
to betray the ship, had concealed a large loadstone at 
a little distance on one side of the needle. 

On the notions and expectations of one stage of life, 
I suppose most reflecting men look back with a kind 
of compassionate contempt, though it maybe often with 
a mingling wish that some of its enthusiasm of feeling 
could be recovered, I mean the period between child- 
hood and maturity. They are prompted to exclaim, 
What fools we have been — while they recollect how 
sincerely they entertained and advanced the most ridi- 
culous speculations on the interests of life, and the 
questions of truth ; how regretfully astonished they 
were to find the mature sense of some of those around 
them so completely wrong ; yet in other instances what 
veneration they felt for authorities for which they have 
since lost all their respect ; what a fantastic importance 
they attached to some most trivial things ;* what com- 
plaints against their fate were uttered on account of 
disappointments which they have since recollected with 
gaiety or self-congratulation ; what happiness of Ely- 
sium they expected from sources which would soon 
have failed to impart even common satisfaction ; and 
how sure they were that the feelings and opinions then 
predominant would continue through life. 

If a reflective aged mtm were to find at the bottom 

* 1 recollect a youth of some acquirements, who earnestly wished 
the time might one day arrive, when his name should be adorned 
with the addition of D.D., which he deemed one of the sublimest 
of human distinctions. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. Oy 

of an old chest, where it had Iain forgotten fifty years, 
a record which he had written of himself when he was 
young, simply and vividly describing his whole heart 
and pursuits, and reciting verbatim many recent pas- 
sages of the language sincerely uttered to his favourite 
companions ; would he not read it with more wonder 
than almost any other writing could at his age excite ? 
His consciousness would be strangely confused in the 
attempt to verify his identity with such a being. He 
would feel the young man, thus introduced to him, 
separated by so wide a distance as to render all con- 
genial communion impossible. At every sentence, he 
might repeat, Foolish youth ! I have no sympathy with 
your feelings, I can hold no converse with your un- 
derstanding. Thus you see that in the course of a long 
life a man may be several moral persons so dissimilar, 
that if you could find a real individual that should 
nearly exemplify the character in one of these stages, 
and another that should exemplify it in the next, and 
so on to the last, and then bring these several persons 
together into one company, which would thus be a 
representation of the successive states of one man, they 
would feel themselves a most heterogeneous party, 
would oppose and probably despise one another, and 
soon separate, not caring if they were never to meet 
again. The dissimilarity in mind between the two 
extremes, the youth of seventeen and the sage of 
seventy, might perhaps be little less than that in coun- 
tenance ; and as the one of these contrasts might be 
contemplated by an old man, if he had a true portrait 
for which he sat in the bloom of life, and should hold 
it beside a mirror, in which he looks at his present 
countenance, the other would be powerfully felt if he 
had such a genuine and detailed memoir as I have 
supposed. Might it not be worth while for a sefl- 
observant person in early life, to preserve, for the 
inspection of the old man, if he should live so long, 
such a mental likeness of the young one? If it be 



70 

not drawn near the time, it can never be drawn with 
sufficient accuracy.* 

If this sketch of life were not written till a very 
mature or an advanced period of it, a somewhat inter- 
esting point would be, to distinguish the periods during 
which the mind made its greatest progress in the en- 
largement of its faculties, and the time when they appear 
to have reached their insuperable limits. 

And if there have been vernal seasons, (if I may so 
express it,) of goodness also, periods separated off from 
the latter course of life by some point of time subse- 
quent to which the christian virtues have had a less 
generous growth, this is a cicumstance still more worthy 
to be strongly marked. No doubt it will be with a 
reluctant hand that a man marks either of these cir- 
cumstances; for he could not reflect, without regret, 
that many children have grown into maturity and great 
talent, and many unformed or defective characters into 
established excellence, since the period when he ceased 
to become abler or better. Pope, at the age of fifty, 
Avould have been incomparably more mortified than, as 
Johnson says, his readers are, at the fact, if he had 
perceived it, that he could not then write materially 
better than he had written at the age of twenty. — And 
the consciousness of having passed many years without 
any moral and religious progress, ought to be not merely 
the regret for an infelicity, but the remorse of guilt ; 
since, though natural causes must somewhere have cir- 
cumscribed and fixed the extent of the intellectual power, 
an advancement in the nobler distinctions has still con- 

* It is to be acknowledged that the above representation of the 
changes and the contrast is given in the strongest colouring it wilT 
admit. Many men, perhaps the majority, retain through life so 
much of the chief characteristic quality of the dispositions developea 
or acquired in youth, and of the order of notions then taken in, that 
they remain radically of the same character, notwithstanding very 
great modifications effected by time and events ; so that, in a general 
account of men, the mental difference between the two extremes of 
life may be less than the physical. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 71 

tinued to be possible, and will be possible till the evening 
of rational life. The instruction resulting from a clear 
estimate of what has been effected or not in this capital 
concern, is the chief advantage to be derived from 
recording the stages of life, comparing one part with 
another, and bringing the whole into a comparison 
with the standard of perfection, and the illustrious 
human examples which have approached that standard 
the nearest. In forming this estimate, we shall keep 
in view the vast series of advantages and monitions, 
which has run parallel to the train of years ; and it 
will be inevitable to recollect, with severe mortification, 
the sanguine calculations of improvement of the best 
kind, which at various periods the mind delighted itself 
in making for other given future periods, should life 
be protracted till then, and promised itself most cer- 
tainly to realize by the time of their arrival. The 
mortification will be still more grievous, if there was 
at those past seasons something more hopeful than mere 
confident presumptions, if there were actual favourable 
omens, which partly justified while they raised, in our- 
selves and others, anticipations that have mournfully 
failed. My dear friend, it is very melancholy that evil 
must be so palpable, so hatefully conspicuous to an en- 
lightened conscience, in every retrospect of a human life. 

If the supposed memoirs be to be carried foward as 
life advances, each period being recorded as soon as it 
has elapsed, they should not be composed by small 
daily or weekly accumulations, (though this practice 
may have its use, in keeping a man observant of him- 
self.) but at certain considerable intervals, as at the end 
of each year, or any other measure of time that is am- 
ple enough for some definable alteration to have taken 
place in the character or attainments. 

It is needless to say that the style should be as simple 
as possible — unless indeed the writer accounts the theme 
worthy of being bedecked with brilliants' and flowers. 
If he idolize his own image so much as to think it 



72 ON A man's writing 

deserves to be enshrined in a frame or cabinet of gold, 
why, let him enshrine it. 

Should it be asked what degree of explicitness ought 
to prevail through this review, in reference to those 
particulars on which conscience has fixed the most 
condemning mark ; I answer, that if a man writes it 
exclusively for his own use, he ought to signify the 
quality and measure of the delinquency, so far expli- 
citly, as to secure to his mind a defined recollection of 
the verdict pronounced by conscience before its emo--* 
tions were quelled by time ; and so far as, in default 
of an adequate sentence then^ to constrain him to pro- 
nounce it now. Such honest distinctness is necessary, 
because this will be the most useful part of his record 
for reflection to dwell upon ; because this is the part 
which self-love is most willing to diminish and memo- '. 
ry to dismiss ; because mere general terms or allusions 
of censure will but little aid the cultivation of his hu- 
mility ; and because this license of saying so much 
about himself in the character of a biographer may be- 
come only a temptation to the indulgence of vanity, 
and a protection from the shame of it, unless he cani 
maintain the feeling in earnest that it is really at a con- 
fessional, a severe one, that he is giving his account. 

But perhaps he wishes to hold this record open to 
an intimate relation or friend ; perhaps even thinks it; 
might supply some interest and some lessons to his 
children. And what then ? Why then it is perhaps 
too probable that though he could readily confess some i 
of his faults, there may have been certain states of his 
mind, and certain circumstances in his conduct, which 
he cannot persuade himself to present to such inspection. 
Such a difficulty of being quite ingenuous, when it is 
actually guilt, and not merely some propriety of dis- 
cretion or good taste, that creates it, is in every instance 
a cause for deep regret. Should not a man tremble to 
feel himself not daring to confide to an equal and a 
mortal, what has been all observed by the Supreme 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 73 

Witness and Judge ? And the consideration of the 
large proportion of men constituting such instances, 
throws a melancholy hue over the general human char- 
acter. It has several times, in writing this essay, oc- 
curred to me what strangers men may be to one anoth- 
er, whether as to the influences which have determined 
their characters, or as to the less obvious parts of their 
conduct. What strangers too we may be, with per- 
sons who have the art of concealment, to the principles 
which are at this moment prevailing in the heart. 
Each mind has an interior apartment of its own, into 
which none but itself and the Divinity can enter. In 
this secluded place the passions mingle and fluctuate in 
unknown agitations. Here all the fantastic and all the 
tragic shapes of imagination have a haunt, where they 
can neither be invaded nor descried. Here the sur- 
rounding human beings, while quite insensible of it, 
are made the subjects of deliberate thought, and many 
of the designs respecting them revolved in silence. 
Here projects, convictions, vows, are confusedly scat- 
tered, and the records of past life are laid. Here in 
solitary state sits Conscience, surrounded by her own 
thunders, which sometimes sleep, and sometimes roar, 
while the world does not know. 

The secrets of this apartment, could they have been 
even but very partially brought forth, might have been 
fatal to that eulogy and splendour with which many a 
piece of biography has been exhibited by a partial and 
ignorant friend. If, in a man's own account of himself, 
written on the supposition of being seen by any other 
person, the substance of the secrets of this apartment be 
brought forth, he throws open the last asylum of his 
character, where it is well if there be nothing found 
that will distress and irritate his most partial friend, 
who may thus become the ally of his conscience to 
condemn, without the leniency which even conscience 
acquires from self-love. And if it be not brought forth, 
where is the integrity or value of the history, suppo- 
7 



74 ■ ON Amman's writing 

sing it pretend to afford a full and faithful estimate ; 
and what ingenuous man could bear to give a delu- 
sive assurance of his being, or having been, so much 
more worthy of applause or affection than conscience 
all the while pronounces ? It is obvious then that a 
man whose sentiments and designs, or the undisclosed 
parts of whose conduct have been deeply criminal, 
must keep his record sacred to himself; unless he feels 
such an unsupportable longing to relieve his heart by 
confiding its painful consciousness, that he can be con- 
tent to hold the regard of his friend on the strength of 
his penitence and recovered virtue. As to those, whose 
memory of the past is sullied by shades if not by 
stains, they must either in the same manner retain the 
delineation for solitary use, or limit themselves in wri- 
ting it, to a deliberate and strong expression of the 
measure of conscious culpabilities, and their effect in 
the general character, with a certain, not deceptive but 
partially reserved explanation, that shall equally avoid 
particularity and mystery ; or else they must consent to 
meet their friends, who share the human frailty and 
have had their deviations, on terms of mutual ingen- 
uous acknowledgment. In this confidential commu- 
nication, each will learn to behold the other's trans- 
gressions fully as much in that light in which they cer- 
tainly are infelicities to be commiserated, as in that in 
which they are also faults or vices to be condemned ; 
while both earnestly endeavour to improve by their re- 
membered errors. 

But I shall find myself in danger of becoming ridic- 
ulous, amidst these scruples about an entire ingenu- 
ousness to a confidential friend or two, while I glance 
into the literary world, and observe the number of his- 
torians of their own lives, who magnanimously throw 
the complete cargo, both of their vanities and their 
vices, before the whole public. Men who can gaily 
laugh at themselves for ever having even pretended to 
goodness ; who can tell of having sought consolation 



MEMOIRS OF fflMSELF. 75 

for the sorrows of bereaved tenderness, in the recesses 
of debauchery ; whose language betrays that they deem 
a spirited course of profligate adventures a much finer 
thing than the stupidity of vulgar virtues, and who 
seem to claim the sentiments with which we regard an 
unfortunate hero for the disasters into which these ad- 
ventures led them ; venal partisans whose talents 
would hardly have been bought, if their venom had 
not made up the deficiency ; profane travelling cox- 
combs ; players, and the makers of immoral plays — all 
can narrate the course of a contaminated life with the 
most ingenuous hardihood. Even courtezans, grieved 
at the excess of modesty with which the age is afflicted, 
have endeavoured to diminish the evil, by presenting 
themselves before the public in their narratives, in a 
manner very analogous to that in which the Lady 
Godiva is said to have consented, from a most generous 
inducement, to pass through the city of Coventry. 
They can gravely relate, perhaps with intermingled 
paragraphs and verses of plaintive sensibility (a kind 
of weeds in which sentiment without principle apes 
and mocks mourning virtue,) the whole nauseous de- 
tail of their transitions from proprietor to proprietO'r. 
They can tell of the precautions for meeting some " il- 
lustrious personage," accomplished in depravity even 
in his early youth, with the proper adjustment of time 
and circumstances to save him the scandal of such a 
meeting; the hour when they crossed the river in a 
boat; the arrangements about money; the kindness of 
the " personage" at one time, his contemptuous neglect 
at another ; and every thing else that can turn the 
compassion with which we deplore their first misfor- 
tunes and errors, into detestation of the effrontery 
which can take to itself a merit in proclaiming the 
commencement, sequel, and all, to the wide world. 

With regard to all the classes of self-describers who 
thus think the publication of their vices necessary to 
crown their fame, one should wish there were some 



76 ON A man's writing 

public special mark and brand of emphatic reprobation, 
to reward this tribute to public morals. Men that 
court the pillory for the pleasure of it, ought to receive 
the honour of it too, in all those contumelious salu- 
tations which suit the merits of vice grown proud of 
its impudence. They who " glory in their shame" 
should, like other distinguished personages, " pay a tax 
for being eminent." Yet I own the public itself is to 
be consulted in this case ; for if the public welcomes 
such productions, it shows there are readers who feel 
themselves akin to the writers, and it would be hard to 
deprive congenial souls of the luxury of their appro- 
priate sympathies. If such is the taste, it proves that 
a considerable portion of the public deserves just that 
kind of respect for its virtue, which is very signifi- 
cantly implied in this confidence of its favour. 

One is indignant at the cant pretence and title of 
Confessions, sometimes adopted by these exhibiters of 
their own disgrace ; as if it were to be believed, that 
penitence and humiliation would ever excite men to 
call thousands to witness a needless disclosure of what 
oppresses them with grief and shame. If they would 
be mortified that only a few readers should think it 
worth while to see them thus performing the work of 
self-degradation, like the fetid heroes of the Dunciad 
in a ditch, would it be because they are desirous that 
the greatest possible number should have the benefit 
of being averted from vice through disgust and con- 
tempt of them as its example ? No, this title of Confes- 
sions is only a nominal deference to morality, neces- 
sary indeed to be paid, because mankind never forget 
to insist, that the name of virtue shall be respected, 
even while vice obtains from them that practical fa- 
vour on which these writers place their reliance for 
toleration or applause. This slight homage being duly 
rendered and occasionally repeated, they trust in the 
character of the community that they shall not meet 
the kind of condemnation, and they have no desire for 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 77 

the kind of pity, which would strictly belong to cri- 
minals ; nor is it any part or effect of their penitence, 
to wish that society may be made better by seeing in 
them how odious are folly and vice. They are glad 
the age continues such, that even they may have claims 
to be praised ; and honour of some kind, and from 
some quarter, is the object to which they aspire, and 
the consequence which they promise themselves. Let 
them once be convinced, that they make such exhi- 
bitions under the absolute condition of subjecting them- 
selves irredeemably to opprobrium, as in Miletus the 
persons infected with a rage for destroying themselves 
were by a solemn decree assured of being exposed in 
naked ignominy after the perpetration of the deed — 
and these literary suicides will be heard of no more. 

Rousseau has given a memorable example of this 
voluntary humiliation. And he has very honestly 
assigned the degree of contrition which accompanied 
the self-inflicted penance, in the declaration that this 
document with all its dishonours, shall be presented in 
his justification before the Eternal Judge. If we could, 
in any case, pardon the kind of ingenuousness which 
he has displayed, it would certainly be in the disclosure 
of a mind so wonderfully singular as his.* We are 

* There is indeed one case in which this kind of honesty would 
be so signally useful to mankind, that it would deserve almost to 
be canonized into a virtue. If statesmen, including monarchs, 
courtiers, ministers, senators, popular leaders, ambassadors, &c., 
would publish, before they go in the triumph of virtue, to the 
" last audit," or leave to be published after they are gone, each a 
frank exposition of motives, intrigues, cabals, and manoeuvres, 
the worship which mankind have rendered to power and rank 
would cease to be what it has always been, a mere blind supersti- 
tion^ when such rational grounds should come to be shown for the 
homage. It might contribute to a happy exorcism of that spirit 
which has never suffered nations to be at peace ; while it would 
give an altered and less delusive character to history. Great ser- 
vice in this way, but unfortunately late, is in the course of being 
rendered in our times, by the publication of private memoirs, 
written by persons connected or acquainted with those of the 

7* 



78 ON A man's WRlTINGj ETC. 

almost willing to have such a being preserved to all 
the unsightly minutiae and anomalies of its form, to be 
placed, as an unique in the moral museum of the world. 
Rousseau's impious reference to the Divine Judge, 
leads me to suggest, as I conclude, the consideration, 
that the history of each man's life, though it should 
not be written by himself or by any mortal hand, is 
thus far unerringly recorded, will one day be finished 
in truth, and one other day yet to come, will be 
brought to a final estimate. A mind accustomed to 
grave reflections is sometimes led involuntarily into a 
curiosity of awful conjecture, which asks. What are 
those words which I should read this night, if, as to 
Belshazzar, a hand of prophetic shade were sent to 
write before me the identical expression, or the mo- 
mentous import, of the sentence in which that final 
estimate will be declared ? 

highest order. Let any one look at the exhibition of the very 
centre of the dignity and power of a great nation, as given in 
Pepys's Memoirs, though with the omission in that pubUcation, as 
I am informed on the best authority, of sundry passages contained 
in the manuscript, of such a colour that their production would 
have exceeded the very utmost license allowable by public deco- 
rum. I need not revert to works now comparatively ancient, such 
as Lord Melbourn's Diary. 



ESSAY II. 

ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 



LETTER I. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

We have several times talked of this bold quality, 
and acknowleged its great importance. Without it, a 
human being, with powers at best but feeble and sur- 
rounded by innumerable things tending to perplex, to 
divert, and to frustrate, their operations, is indeed a 
pitiable atom, the sport of divers and casual impulses. 
It is a poor and disgraceful thing, not to be able to 
reply, with some degree of certainty, to the simple 
questions, What will you be ? What will you do ? 

A little acquaintance with mankind will supply 
numberless illustrations of the importance of this qual- 
ijScation. You will often see a person anxiously hesi- 
tating a long time between different, or opposite deter- 
minations, though impatient of the pain of such a 
state, and ashamed of the debility. A faint impulse 
of preference alternates toward the one, and toward the 
other ; and the mind, while thus held in a trembling 
balance, is vexed that it cannot get some new thought, 
or feeling, or motive ; that it has not more sense, more 
resolution, more of any thing that would save it 
from envying even the decisive instinct of brutes. It 
wishes that any circumstance might happen, or any 
person might appear, that could deliver it from the 
miserable suspense. 



80 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

In many instances, when a determination is adopted, 
it is frustrated by this temperament. A man, for ex- 
ample, resolves on a journey to-morrow, which he is 
not under an absolute necessity to undertake, but the 
inducements appear, this evening, so strong-, that he 
does not think it possible he can hesitate in the morn- 
ing. In the morning, however, these inducements 
have unaccountably lost much of their force. Like the 
sun that is rising at the same time, they appear dim 
through a mist ; and the sky lowers, or he fancies that 
it does, and almost wishes to see darker clouds than 
there actually are ;- recollections of toils and fatigues 
ill repaid in past expeditions rise and pass into anticipa- 
tion ; and he lingers, uncertain, till an advanced hour 
determines the question for him, by the certainty that 
it is now too late to go. 

Perhaps a man has conclusive reasons for wishing 
to remove to another place of residence. But when 
he is going to take the first actual step towards ex- 
ecuting his purpose, he is met by a new train of ideas, 
presenting the possible and magnifying the unques- 
tionable, disadvantages and uncertainties of a new 
situation ; awakening the natural reluctance to quit 
a place to which habit has accommodated his feel- 
ings, and which has grown ivarm to him, (if I may so 
express it,) by his havmg been in it so long ; giving a 
new impulse to his affection for the friends whom he 
must leave ; and so detaining him still lingering, long 
after his judgment may have dictated to him to be 
gone. \ 

A man may think of some desirable alteration in 
his plan of life ; perhaps in the arrangements of his 
family, or in the mode of his intercourse with society, 
— Would it be a good thing ? He thinks it would be 
a good thing. It certainly would be a very good thing. 
He wishes it were done. He will attempt it almost 
immediately. The following day, he doubts whether 
it would be quite prudent. Many things are to be 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 81 

considered. May there not be in the change some evil 
of which he is not aware ? Is this a proper time ? 
What will people say 1 — And thus, though he does not 
formally renounce his purpose, he shrinks out of it, 
with an irksome wish that he could be fully satisfied 
of the propriety of renouncing it. Perhaps he wishes 
that the thought had never occurred to him, since it 
has diminished his self-complacency, without promoting 
his virtue. But next week, his conviction of the wis- 
dom and advantage of such a reform comes again with 
great force. Then, Is it so practicable as I was at first 
willing to imagine? Why not? Other men have 
done much greater things ; a resolute mind may brave 
and accomplish every thing; difficulty is a stimulus 
and a triumph to a strong spirit ; " the joys of conquest 
are the joys of man." What need I care for people's 
opinion? It shall be done. — He makes the first at- 
tempt. But some unexpected obstacle presents itself; 
he feels the awkwardness of attempting an unaccus- 
tomed manner of acting ; the questions or the ridicule 
of his friends disconcert him ; his ardour abates and 
expires. He again begins to question, whether it be 
wise, whether it be necessary, whether it be possible ; 
and at last surrenders his purpose to be perhaps re- 
sumed when the same feelings return, and to be in the 
same manner again relinquished. 

While animated by some magnanimous sentiments 
which he has heard or read, or while musing on some 
great example, a man may conceive the design, and 
partly sketch the plan, of a generous enterprise ; and 
his imagination revels in the felicity, to others and 
himself, that would follow from its accomplishment. 
The splendid representation always centres m himself 
as the hero who is to realize it. 

In a moment of remitted excitement, a faint whisper 
from within may doubtfully ask. Is this more than a 
dream ; or am I really destined to achieve such an en- 
terprise ? Destined ! — and why are not this conviction 



82 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

of its excellence, this conscious duty of performing the' 
noblest things that are possible, and this passionate ar- 
dour, enough to constitute a destiny ? He feels indig- 
nant that there should be a failing part of his nature 
to defraud the nobler, and cast him below the ideal 
model and the actual examples which he is admiring ; 
and this feeling assists him to resolve, that he will un- 
dertake this enterprise, that he. certainly will, though 
the Alps or the Ocean lie between him and the object. 
Again, his ardour slackens ; distrustful of himself, he 
wishes to know how the design would appear to other 
minds ; and when he speaks of it to his associates, one 
of them wonders, another laughs, and another frowns. 
His pride, while with them, attempts a manful defence ; 
but his resolution gradually crumbles down toward 
their level ; he becomes in a little while ashamed to en- 
tertain a visionary project, which therefore, like a re- 
jected friend, desists from intruding on him or follow- 
ing him, except at lingering distance ; and he subsides, 
at last, into what he labours to believe a man too ra- 
tional for the schemes of ill-calculating enthusiasm. 
And it were strange if the effort to make out this fa- 
vourable estimate of himself did not succeed, while it is 
so much more pleasant to attribute one's defect of enter- 
prise to wisdom, which on maturer thought disapproves 
it, than to imbecility, which shrinks from it. 

A person of undecisive character wonders how all 
the embarrassments in the world happened to meet 
exactly in his way, to place him just in that one situa- 
tion for which he is peculiarly unadapted, but in which 
he is also willing to think no other man could have 
acted with facility or confidence. Incapable of setting 
up a firm purpose on the basis of things as they are, 
he is often employed in vain speculations on some 
different supposable state of things, which would have 
saved him from all this perplexity and irresolution. 
He thinks what a determined course he could have 
pursued, if his talents, his health, his age, had been 



ON EZCISION OF CHARACTER. 83 

different ; if he had been acquainted with some one 
person sooner ; if his friends were, in this or the other 
point, different from what they are : or if fortune had 
showered her favours on him. And he gives himself 
as much Hcense to complain, as if all these advantages 
had been among the rights of his nativity, but refused, 
by a malignant or capricious fate, to his life. Thus 
he • is occupied — instead of marking with a vigilant 
eye, and seizing with a strong hand, all the possibili- 
ties of his actual situation. 

A man without decision can never be said to belong 
to himself; since, if he dared to assert that he did, the 
puny force of some cause, about as powerful, you 
would have supposed, as a spider, may make a seizure 
of the hapless boaster the very next moment, and con- 
temptuously exhibit the futility of the determinations 
by which he was to have proved the independence of 
his understanding and his will. He belongs to what- 
ever can make capture of him ; and one thing after 
another vindicates its right to him, by arresting him 
while he is trying to go on ; as twigs and chips, float- 
ing near the edge of a river, are intercepted by every 
weed, and whirled m every little eddy. Having con- 
cluded on a design, he may pledge himself to accom- 
plish it — if the hundred diversities of feeling which 
may come within the week, will let him. His charac- 
ter precluding all foresight of his conduct, he may sit 
and wonder what form and direction his views and 
actions are destined to take to-morrow ; as a farmer 
has often to acknowledge that next day's proceedings 
are at the disposal of its winds and clouds. 

This man's notions and determinations always de- 
pend very much on other human beings ; and what 
chance for consistency and stability, while the persons 
with whom he may converse, or transact, are so vari- 
ous % This very evening, he may talk with a man 
whose sentiments will melt away the present form and 
outline of his purposes, however firm and defined he 



84 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

may have fancied them to be. A succession of per- 
sons whose facuhies were stronger than his own. might, 
in spite of his irresolute re-action, take him and dispose 
of him as they pleased. Such infirmity of spirit prac- 
tically confesses him made for subjection, and he passes, 
like a slave, from owner to o 'vner. Sometimes indeed 
it happens, that a person so constituted falls into the 
train, and under the permanent ascendency, of some 
one stronger mind, which thus becomes through life 
the oracle and guide, and gives the inferior a steady 
will and plan. This, when the governing spirit is wise 
and virtuous, is a fortunate relief to the feeling, and 
an advantage gained to the utility, of the subordinate, 
and as it were, appended mind. 

The regulation of every man's plan must greatly 
depend on the course of events, which come in an or- 
der not to be foreseen or prevented. But in accommo- 
dating the plans of conduct to the train of events, the 
difference between two men may be no less than that, 
in the one instance, the man is subservient to the 
events, and in the other, the events are made subservi- 
ent to the man. Some men seem to have been taken 
along by a succession of events, and, as it were, handed 
forward in helpless passiveness from one to another -, 
having no determined principle in their own charac- 
ters, by which they could constrain those events to 
serve a design formed antecedently to them, or appa- 
rently in defiance 6f them. The events seized them 
as a neutral material, not they the events. Others, ad- 
vancing through life with an internal invincible deter- 
mination, have seemed to make the train of circum- 
stances, whatever they were, conduce as much to their 
chief design as if they had, by some directing interpo- 
sition, been brought about on purpose. It is wonderful 
how even the casualties of life seem to bow to a spirit 
that will not bow to them, and yield to subserve a de* 
sign which they may, in their first apparent tendency, 
threaten to frustrate. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 85 

You may have known such examples, though they 
are comparatively not numerous. You may have seen 
a man of this vigorous character in a state of indecision 
concerning some affair in which it was necessary for 
him to determine, because it was necessary for him to 
act. But in this case, his manner would assure you 
that he would not remain long undecided ; you would 
wonder if you found him still balancing and hesitating 
the next day. If he explained his thoughts, you 
would perceive that their clear process, evidently at 
each effort gaining something toward the result, must 
certainly reach it ere long. The deliberation of such 
a mind is a very different thing from the fluctuation 
of one whose second thinking only upsets the first, and 
whose third confounds both. To know how to obtain 
a determination, is one of the first requisites and indi- 
cations of a rationally decisive character. 

When the decision was arrived at, and a plan of 
action approved, you would feel an assurance that 
something would absolutely be done. It is charac- 
teristic of such a mind, to think for effect ; and the 
pleasure of escaping from temporary doubt gives an 
additional impulse to the force with which it is carried 
into action. The man will not re-examine his con- 
clusions with endless repetition, and he will not be de- 
layed long by consulting other persons, after he had 
ceased to consult himself He cannot bear to sit still 
among unexecuted decisions and unattempted projects. 
We wait to hear of his achievements, and are confident 
we shall not wait long. The possibility or the means 
may not be obvious to us, but we know that every 
thing will be attempted, and that a spirit of such de- 
termined will is like a river, which, in whatever man" 
ner it is obstructed, will make its way somewhere. It 
must have cost Caesar many anxious hours of delibera- 
tion, before he decided to pass the Rubicon ; but it is 
probable he suffered but few to elapse between the de- 
cision and the execution. And any one of his friends, 
8 



86 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

who should have been apprised of his determination, 
and understood his character, would have smiled con- 
temptuously to hear it insinuated that though Caesar 
had resolved, Csesar would not dare ; or that though 
he might cross the Rubicon, whose opposite bank pre- 
sented to him no hostile legions, he might come to 
other rivers, which he would not cross ; or that either 
rivers, or any other obstacle, would deter him from 
prosecuting his determination from this ominous com- 
mencement to its very last consequence. 

One signal advantage possessed by a mind of this 
character is, that its passions are not wasted. The 
whole measure of passion of which any one, with im- 
portant transactions before him, is capable, is not more 
than enough to supply interest and energy for the re- 
quired practical exertions ; the therefore as little as 
possible of this costly flame should be expended in a 
way that does not augment the force of action. But 
nothing can less contribute or be more destructive to 
vigour of action than protracted anxious fluctuation, 
through resolutions adopted, rejected, resumed, sus- 
pended ; while yet nothing causes a greater expense of 
feeling. The heart is fretted and exhausted by being 
subjected to an alternation of contrary excitements, 
with the ultimate mortifying consciousness of their con- 
tributing to no end. The long-wavering deliberation, 
whether to perform some bold action of difiicult virtue, 
has often cost more to feeling than the action itself, or 
a series of such actions, would have cost ; with the 
great disadvantage too of not being relieved by any of 
that in vigor ation which the man in action finds in the 
activity itself, that spirit created to renovate the energy 
which the action is expending. When the passions 
are not consumed among dubious musings and abor- 
tive resolutions, their utmost value and use can be se- 
cured by throwing all their animating force into effec- 
tive operation. 

Another advantage of this character, is, that it 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 87 

exempts from a great deal of interference and ob- 
structive annoyance, which an irresolute man may be 
almost sure to encounter. Weakness, in every form, 
tempts arrogance ; and a man may be allowed to wish 
for a kind of character with which stupidity and im- 
pertinence may not make so free. When a firm decisive 
spirit is recognised, it is curious to see how the space 
clears around a man, and leaves him room and freedom. 
The disposition to interrogate, dictate, or banter, pre- 
serves a respectful and politic distance, judging it not 
unwise to keep the peace with a person of so much 
energy. A conviction that he understands and that he 
wills with extraordinary force, silences the conceit that 
intended to perplex or instruct him, and intimidates 
the malice that was disposed to attack him. There is 
a feeling, as in respect to Fate, that the decrees of so 
inflexible a spirit must be right, or that, at least, they 
will be accomplished. 

But not only will he secure the freedom of acting 
for himself, he will obtain also by degrees the coinci- 
dence of those in whose company he is to transact the 
business of life. If the manners of such a man be 
free from arrogance, and he can qualify his firmness 
with a moderate degree of insinuation ; and if his 
measures have partly lost the appearance of being the 
dictates of his will, under the wider and softer sanction 
of some experience that they are reasonable ; both 
competition and fear will be laid to sleep, and his will 
may acquire an unresisted ascendency over many who 
will be pleased to fall into the mechanism of a system, 
which they find makes them more successful and happy 
than they could have been amidst the anxiety of ad- 
justing plans and expedients of their own, and the 
consequences of often adjusting them ill. I have 
known several parents, both fathers and mothers, whose 
management of their families has answered this de- 
scription ; and has displayed a striking example of the, 
facile complacency with which a number of persons. 



88 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

of different ages and dispositions, will yield to the de- 
cisions of a firm mind, acting on an equitable and en- 
lightened system. 

The last resource of this character, is, hard inflexible 
pertinacity, on which it may be allowed to rest its 
strength after finding it can be effectual in none of its 
milder forms. I remember admiring an instance of 
this kind, in a firm, sagacious, and estimable old man, 
whom I well knew, and who has long been dead. Being 
on a jury, in a trial of life and death, he was satisfied 
of the innocence of the prisoner ; the other eleven were 
of the opposite opinion. But he was resolved the man 
should not be condemned ; and as the first effort for pre- 
venting it. very properly made application to the minds 
of his associates, spending several hours in labouring to 
convince them. But he found he made no impression, 
while he was exhausting the strength which it was ne- 
cessary to reserve for another mode of operation. He 
then calmly told them that it should now be a trial 
who could endure confinement and famine the longest, 
and that they might be quite assured he would sooner 
die than release them at the expense of the prisoner's 
life. In this situation they spent about twenty-four 
hours ; when at length all acceded to his verdict of ac- 
quittal. 

It is not necessary to amplify on the indispensable 
importance of this quality, in order to the accomplish- 
ment of any thing eminently good. We instantly see, 
that every path to signal excellence is so obstructed 
and beset, that none but a spirit so qualified can pass. 
But it is time to examine what are the elements of that 
mental constitution which is displayed in the character 
in question. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 



LETTER II. 



Perhaps the best mode would be, to bring into our 
thoughts, in succession, the most remarkable examples 
of this character that we have known in real life, or 
that we have read of in history or even in fiction ; and 
attentively to observe, in their conversations, manners, 
and actions, what principles appear to produce, or to 
constitute, this commanding distinction. You will 
easily pursue this investigation yourself I lately made 
a partial attempt, and shall offer you a number of sug- 
gestions. 

As a previous observation, it is beyond ail doubt that 
very much depends on the constitution of the body. It 
would be for physiologists to explain, if it were expli- 
cable, the manner in which corporeal organization affects 
the mind ; I only assume it as a fact, that there is in the 
material construction of some persons, much more than 
of others, some quality which augments, if it do not 
create, both the stability of their resolution, and the 
energy of their active tendencies. There is something 
that, like the ligatures which one class of the Olym.pic 
combatants bound on their hands and wrists, braces 
round, if I may so describe it, and compresses the 
powers of the mind, giving them a steady forcible 
spring and reaction, which they would presently lose if 
they could be transferred into a constitution of soft, 
yielding, treacherous debility. The action of strong 
character seems to demand something firm in its mate- 
rial basis, as massive engines require, for their weight 
and for their working, to be fixed on a solid foundation. 
Accordingly I believe it would be found, that a majority 
of the persons most remarkable for decisive character, 
have possessed great constitutional physical firmness. 
I do not mean an exemption from disease and pain, 



90 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

nor any certain measure of mechanical strength, but a 
tone of vigour, the opposite to lassitude, and adapted to 
great exertion and endurance. This is clearly evinced 
in respect to many of them, by the prodigious labours 
and deprivations which they have borne in prosecuting 
their designs. The physical nature has seemed a proud 
ally of the moral one, and with a hardness that would 
never shrink, has sustained the energy that could never 
remit. 

A view of the disparities between the different races 
of animals inferior to man, will show the effect of 
organization on disposition. Compare, for instance, a 
lion with the common beasts of our fields, many of them 
larger in bulk of animated substance. What a vast 
superiority of courage, and impetuous and determined 
action ; which difference we attribute to some great 
dissimilarity of modification in the composition of the 
animated material. Now it is probable that a difference 
somewhat analogous subsists between some human 
beings and others in point of what we may call mere 
physical constitution ; and that this is no small part of 
the cause of the striking inequalities in respect to deci- 
sive character. A man who excels in the power of 
decision has probably more of the physical quality of a 
lion in his composition than other men. 

It is observable that women in general have less in- 
flexibility of character than men ; and though many 
moral influences contribute to this difference, the prin- 
cipal cause may probably be something less firm in the 
corporeal constitution. Now that physical quality, 
whatever it is, from the smaller measure of which in 
the constitution of the frame, women have less firmness 
than men, may be possessed by one man more than by 
men in general in a greater degree of difference than 
that by which men in general exceed women. 

If there have been found some resolute spirits pow- 
erfully asserting themselves in feeble vehicles, it is so 
much the better ; since this would authorize a hope, 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 91 

that if all the other grand requisites can be combined, 
they may form a strong character, in spate of an un- 
adapted constitution. And on the other hand, no con- 
stitutional hardness will form the true character, without 
those superior properties ; though it may produce that 
false and contemptible kind of decision which we term 
obstinacy ; a stubbornness of temper, which can assign 
no reasons but mere will, for a constancy which acts in 
the nature of dead weight rather than of strength ; re- 
sembling less the reaction of a powerful spring than the 
gravitation of a big stone. 

The first prominent mental characteristic of the 
person whom I describe, is, a complete confidence in 
his own judgment. It will perhaps be said, that this is 
not so uncommon a qualification. I however think it 
is uncommon. It is indeed obvious enough, that almost 
all men have a flattering estimate of their own under- 
standing, and that as long as this understanding has no 
harder task than to form opinions which are not to be 
tried in action, they have a most self-complacent 
assurance of being right. This assurance extends to 
the judgments which they pass on the proceedings of 
others. But let them be brought into the necessity of 
adopting actual measures in an untried situation, where, 
unassisted by any previous example or practice, they 
are reduced to depend on the bare resources of judgment 
alone, and you will see in many cases, this confidence 
of opinion vanish away. The mind seems all at once 
placed in a misty vacuity, where it reaches round on 
all sides, but can find nothing to take hold of Or if 
not lost in vacuity, it is overwhelmed in confusion ; 
and feels as if its faculties were annihilated in the 
attempt to think of schemes and calculations among 
the possibilities, chances, and hazards which overspread 
a wide untrodden field ; and this conscious imbecility 
becomes severe distress, when it is believed that conse- 
quences, of serious or unknown good or evil, are de- 
pending on the decisions which are to be formed amidst 



92 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

SO much uncertainty. The thought painfully recurs at 
each step and turn, I may by chance be right, but it is 
fully as probable I am wrong. It is like the case of a 
rustic walking in London, who, having no certain 
direction through the vast confusion of streets to the 
place where he wishes to be, advances, and hesitates, 
and turns, and inquires, and becomes, at each corner, 
still more inextricably perplexed.* A man in this 
situation feels he shall be very unfortunate if he cannot 
accomplish more than he can understand. Is not this 
frequently, when brought to the practical test, the state 
of a mind not disposed in general to undervalue its 
own judgment? 

In cases where judgment is not so completely bewil- 
dered, you will yet perceive a great practical distrust 
of it, A man has perhaps advanced a considerable 
way towards a decision, but then lingers at a small dis- 
tance from it, till necessity, with a stronger hand than 
conviction, impels him upon it. He cannot see the 
whole length of the question, and suspects the part be- 
yond his sight to be the most important, for the most 
essential point and stress of it may be there. He fears 
that certain possible consequences, if they should follow, 
would cause him to reproach himself for his present 
determination. He wonders how this or the other per- 
son would have acted in the same circumstances ; ea- 
gerly catches at any thing like a respectable precedent; 
would be perfectly wilhng to forego the pride of set- 
ting an example, for the safety of following one ; and 
looks anxiously round to know what each person may 
think on the subject ; while the various and opposite 
opinions to which he listens, perhaps only serve to con- 
found his perception of the track of thought by which 

* " Why does not the man call a hackney-coach V a gay reader, 
I am aware, will say of the person so bemazed in the great town. 
So he might, certainly ; (that is, if he knew whereto find one;) and 
the gay reader and I have only to deplore that there is no parallel 
convenience for the assistance of perplexed understandings. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 93 

he had hoped to reach his conclusion. Even when 
that conclusion is obtained, there are not many minds 
that might not be brought a few degrees back into du- 
bious hesitation, by a man of respected understanding 
saying, in a confident tone. Your plan is injudicious ; 
your selection is unfortunate ; the event will disappoint 
you. 

It cannot be supposed that I am maintaining such 
an absurdity as that a man's complete reliance on his 
own judgment is a proof of its strength and rectitude. 
Intense stupidity may be in this point the rival of clear- 
sighted wisdom. I had once some knowledge of a 
person whom no mortal could have surpassed, not 
Cromwell or Strafford, in confidence in his own judg- 
ment and consequent inflexibility of conduct ; while at 
the same time his successive schemes were ill-judged 
to a degree that made his disappointments ridiculous 
still more than pitiable. He was not an example of 
that simple obstinacy which I have mentioned before ; 
for he considered his measures, and did not want for 
reasons which seriously satisfied himself of their being 
most judicious. This confidence of opinion may be 
possessed by a person in whom it will be contemptible 
or mischievous ; but its proper place is in a very differ- 
ent character, and without it there can be no dignified 
actors in human affairs. 

If, after it is seen how foolish this confidence appears 
as a feature in a weak character, it be inquired what, 
in a rightfully decisive person's manner of thinking, it 
is that authorizes him in this firm assurance that his 
view of the concerns before him is comprehensive and 
accurate ; he may, in answer, justify his confidence on 
such grounds as these : that he is conscious that objects 
are presented to his mind with an exceedingly distinct 
and perspicuous aspect, not like the shapes of moon- 
light, or like Ossian's ghosts, dim forms of uncircum- 
scribed shade ; that he sees the different parts of the 
subject in an arranged order, not in unconnected frag- 



94 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

ments ; that in each deliberation the main object keeps) 
its clear pre-eminence, and he perceives the bearings: 
which the subordinate and conducive ones have on it; 
that perhaps several trains of thought, drawn from dif-l 
ferent points, lead him to the same conclusion ; and thati 
he finds his judgment does not vary in servility to thei 
moods of his feelings. 

It may be presumed that a high degree of this char- 
acter is not attained without a considerable measure of=; 
that kind of certainty, with respect to the relations of f 
things, which can be acquired only from experience! 
and observation. A very protracted course of time,) 
however, may not be indispensable for this discipline. 
An extreme vigilance in the exercise of observation, 
and a strong and strongly exerted power of general- 
izing on experience, may have made a co'mparatively ' 
short time enough to supply a large share of the wis- 
dom derivable from these sources ; so that a man may ) 
long before he is old be rich in the benefits of experi- 
ence, and therefore may have all the decision of judg- 
ment legitimately founded on that accomplishment. 
This knowledge from experience he will be able to apply ^ 
in a direct and immediate manner, and without refining ; 
it into general principles, to some situations of affairs, ; 
so as to anticipate the consequences of certain actions : 
in those situations by as plain a reason, and as con- 
fidently, as the kind of fruit to be produced by a given i 
kind of tree. Thus far the facts of his experience will 
serve him as precedents ; cases of such near resem- 
blance to those in which he is now to act as to aflford 
him a rule by the most immediate inference. At the 
next step, he will be able to apply this knowledge, now /j 
converted into general principles, to a multitude of I 
cases bearing but a partial resemblance to any thing he i 
has actually witnessed. And then, in looking forward ii 
to the possible occurrence of altogether new combina- 
tions of circumstances, he can trust to the resources 
which he is persuaded his intellect will open to him, or 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 95 

is humbly confident, if he be a devout man. that the 
Supreme Intelligence will not suffer to be wanting to 
him when the occasion arrives. In proportion as his 
views include, at all events, more certainties than those 
of other men, he is with good reason less fearful of 
I contingencies. And if, in the course of executing his 
j design, unexpected disastrous events should befall, but 
: which are not owing to any thing wrong in the plan 
and principles of that design, but to foreign causes ; it 
will be characteristic of a strong mind to attribute these 
events discriminatively to their own causes, and not to 
the j)lan^ which, therefore, instead of being disliked 
and relinquished, will be still as much approved as be- 
fore, and the man will proceed calmly to the sequel of 
it without any change of arrangement ; — unless in- 
deed these sinister events should be of such conse- 
quence as to alter the whole state of things to which 
the plan was correctly adapted, and so create a neces- 
sity to form an entirely new one, adapted to that alter- 
ed state. 

Though he do not absolutely despise the under- 
standings of other men, he will perceive their dimen- 
sions as compared with his own, which will preserve 
its independence through every communication and 
encounter. It is however a part of this very inde- 
pendence, that he will hold himself free to alter his 
opinion, if the information which may be communica- 
ted to him shall bring sufficient reason. And as no 
one is so sensible of the importance of a complete ac- 
quaintance with a subject as the man who is always 
endeavouring to think conclusively, he will listen with 
the utmost attention to the information^ which may 
sometimes be received from persons for whose judgment 
he has no great respect. The information which they 
may afford him is not at all the less valuable for the 
circumstance, that his practical inferences from it may 
be quite different from theirs. If they will only give 
him an accurate account of facts, he does not care how 



96 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 



7m 



indifferently they may reason on them. Counsel will 
in general have only so much weight with him as it 
supplies knowledge which may assist his judgment ; he 
will yield nothing to it implicitly as authcriiy, except 
when it comes from persons of approved ami eminent 
wisdom ; but he may hear it with more car dour and 
good temper, from being conscious of this independence 
of his judgment, than the man who is afraid lest the 
first person that begins to persuade him, should baffle 
his determination. He feels it entirely a work of his 
own to deliberate and to resolve, amidst all the advice 
which may be attempting to control him. If, with an 
assurance of his intellect being of the highest order, he 
also holds a commanding station, he will feel it gratu- 
itous to consult with any one, excepting merely to re- 
ceive statements of facts. This appears to be exem- 
plified in the man, who has lately shown the nations 
of Europe how large a portion of the world may, 
when Heaven permits, be at the mercy of the solitary 
workings of an individual mind. 

The strongest trial of this determination of judgment 
is in those cases of urgency where something must 
immediately be done, and the alternative of right or 
wrong is of important consequence ; as in the duty of 
a medical man, treating a patient whose situation at 
once requires a daring practice, and puts it in painful 
doubt what to dare. A still stronger illustration is the 
case of a general who is compelled, in the very instant, 
to make dispositions on which the event of a battle, 
the lives of thousands of his men, or perhaps almost 
the fate of a nation, may depend. He may even be 
placed in a dilemma which appears equally dreadful 
on both sides. Such a predicament is described in 
Denon's account of one of the sanguinary conflicts be- 
tween the French and Mamelukes, as having for a 
while held in the most distressing hesitation General 
Desaix, though a prompt and intrepid commander. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 97 



LETTER III. 

This indispensable basis, confidence of opinion, is 
however not enough to constitute the character in 
question. For many persons, who have been conscious 
and proud of a much stronger grasp of thought than 
ordinary men, and have held the most decided opinions 
on important things to be done, have yet exhibited, in 
the listlessness or inconstancy of their actions, a con- 
trast and a disgrace to the operations of their understand- 
ings. For want of some cogent feeling impelling them 
to carry every internal decision into action, thej^ have 
been still left where they were ; and a dignified judg- 
ment has been seen in the hapless plight of having no 
effective forces to execute its decrees. 

It is evident then, (and I perceive I have partly an- 
ticipated this article in the first letter,) that another es- 
sential principle of the character is, a total incapability 
of surrendering to indifference or delay the serious de- 
terminations of the mind. A strenuous will must ac- 
company the conclusions of thought, and constantly in- 
cite the utmost efforts to give them a practical result. 
The intellect must be invested, if I may so describe it, 
with a glowing atmosphere of passion, under the in- 
fluence of which, the cold dictates of reason take fire, 
and spring into active powers. 

Revert once more in your thoughts to the persons 
most remarkably distinguished by this quality. You 
will perceive, that instead of allowing themselves to 
sit down delighted after the labour of successful think- 
ing, as if they had completed some great thing, they 
regard this labour but as a circumstance of preparation, 
and the conclusions resulting from it as of no more 
value, (till going in.to effect,) than the entombed lamps 
of the Rosicrucians. They are not disposed to be 
content in a region of mere ideas, while they ought to 
5 



98 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

be advancing into the field of corresponding realities ; 
they retire to that region sometimes, as ambitious ad- 
venturers anciently went to Delphi, to consuh, but not 
to reside. You will therefore find them almost uni- 
formly in determined pursuit of some object, on which 
they fix a keen and steady look, never losing sight of 
it while they follow it through the confused multitude 
of other things. 

A person actuated by such a spirit, seems by his 
manner to say, Do you think that I would not disdain 
to adopt a purpose which I would not devote my ut- 
most force to effect ; or that having thus devoted my 
exertions, I will intermit or withdraw them, through 
indolence, debility, or caprice ; or that I will surrender 
my object to any interference except the uncontrollable 
dispensations of Providence ? No, I am linked to my 
determination with iron bands ; it clings to me as if a 
part of my destiny ; and if its frustration be, on the 
contrary, doomed a part of that destiny, it is doomed so 
only through calamity or death. 

This display of systematic energy seems to indicate 
a constitution of mind in which the passions are com- 
mensurate with the intellectual part, and at the same 
time hold an inseparable correspondence with it, like 
the faithful sympathy of the tides with the phases of 
the moon. There is such an equality and connexion, 
that subjects of the decisions of judgment become pro- 
portionally and of course the objects of passion. When 
the judgment decides with a very strong preference, 
that same strength of preference, actuating also the 
passions, devotes them with energy to the object, as 
long as it is thus approved ; and this will produce such 
a conduct as I have described. When therefore a 
firm, self-confiding, and unaltering judgment fails to 
make a decisive character, it is evident either that the 
passions in that mind are too languid to be capable of 
a strong and unremitting excitement, which defect 
makes an indolent or irresolute man ; or that they per- 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 99 

versely sometimes coincide with judgment and some- 
times clash with it, which makes an inconsistent or 
versatile man. 

There is no man so irresolute as not to act with de- 
termination in many single cases, where the motive 
is powerful and simple, and where there is no need of 
plan and perseverance ; but this gives no claim to the 
term character^ which expresses the habitual tenour of 
a man's active being. The character may be display- 
ed in the successive unconnected undertakings, which 
are each of limited extent, and end with the attainment 
of their particular objects. But it is seen in its most 
commanding aspect in those grand schemes of action, 
which have no necessary point of conclusion, which 
continue on through successive years, and extend even 
to that dark period when the agent himself is with 
drawn from human sight. 

I have repeatedly, in conversation, remarked to you 
the effect of what has been called a Ruling Passion. 
When its object is noble, and an enlightened under- 
standing regulates its movements, it appears to me a 
great felicity ; but whether its object be noble or not, 
it infallibly creates, where it exists in great force, that 
active ardent constancy, "which I describe as a capital 
feature of the decisive character. The Subject of such 
a commanding passion wonders, if indeed he were at 
leisure to v/onder, at the persons vi^ho pretend to attach 
importance to an object which they make none but the 
most languid efforts to secure. The utmost powers of 
the man are constrained into the service of the favour- 
ite Cause by this passion, which sweeps away, as it ad- 
vances, all the trivial objections and little opposing mo- 
tives, and seems almost to open a way through impos- 
sibilities. This spirit comes on him in the morning as 
soon as he recovers his consciousness, and commands 
and impels him through the day, with a power from 
which he could not emancipate himself if he would. 
When the force of habit is added, the determination 



100 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

becomes invincib^e, and seems to assume rank with 
the great laws of nature, making- it nearly as certain 
that such a man will persist in his course as that in 
the morning the sun will rise. 

A persisting untameable efficacy of soul gives a 
seductive and pernicious dignity even to a character 
which every moral principle forbids us to approve. 
Often in the narrations of history and fiction, an agent 
of the most dreadful designs compels a sentiment of 
deep respect for the unconquerable mind displayed in 
their execution. While we shudder at his activity, we 
say with regret, mingled with an admiration which 
borders on partiality, What a noble being this would 
have been, if goodness had been his destiny ! The 
partiality is evinced in the very selection of terms, 
by which we show that we are tempted to refer his 
atrocity rather to his destiny than to his choice. I 
wonder whether an emotion like this, have not been 
experienced by each reader of Paradise Lost, relative 
to the Leader of the infernal spirits ; a proof, if such 
were the fact, of some insinuation of evil into the mag- 
nificent creation of the poet. In some of the high 
examples of ambition (the ambition which is a vice), 
we almost revere the force of mind which impelled 
them forward through the longest series of action, su- 
perior to doubt and fluctuation, and disdainful of ease, 
of pleasures, of opposition, and of danger. We bend 
in homage before the ambitious spirit which reached 
the true sublime in the reply of Pompey to his friends, 
who dissuaded him from hazarding his life on a tem- 
pestuous sea in order to be at Rome on an important 
occasion : " It is necessary for me to. go, it is not neces- 
sary for me to live." 

Revenge has produced wonderful examples of this 
unremitting- constancy to a purpose. Zanga is a well- 
supported illustration. And you may have read of a 
real instance of a Spaniard, who, being injured by an- 
other inhabitant of the same town, resolved to destroy 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 101 

him ; the other was apprised of this, and removed with 
the utmost secresy, as he thought, to another town at 
a considerable distance, where, however, he had not 
been more than a day or two, before he found that 
his enemy also was there. He removed in the same 
manner to several parts of the kingdom, remote from 
each other ; but in every place quickly perceived that 
his deadly pursuer was near him. At last he went to 
South America, where he had enjoyed his security but 
a very short time, before his relentless pursuer came up 
with him, and accomplished his purpose. 

You may recollect the mention in one of our con- 
versations, of a young man who wasted in two or three 
years a large patrimony, in profligate revels with a 
number of worthless associates calling themselves his 
friends, till his last means were exhausted, when they 
of course treated him with neglect or contempt. Re- 
duced to absolute want, he one day went out of the 
house with an intention to put an end to his life ; but 
wandering awhile almost unconsciously, he came to 
the brow of an eminence which overlooked what were 
lately his estates. Here he sat down and remained 
fixed in thought a number of hours, at the end of 
which he sprang from the ground with a vehement 
exulting emotion. He had formed his resolution, 
which was that all these estates should be his again ; 
he had formed his plan too, which he instantly began 
to execute. He walked hastily forward, determined to 
seize the very first opportunity, of however humble a 
kind, to gain any money, though it were ever so des- 
picable a trifle, and resolved absolutely not to spend, if 
he could help it, a farthing of whatever he might obtain. 
The first thing that drew his attention was a heap of 
coals shot out of carts on the pavement before a house. 
He offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the 
place where they were to be laid, and was employed. 
He received a few pence for the labour ; and then, in 
pursuance of the saving part of his plan, requested 
9* 



102 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

some small gratuity of meat and drink, which was 
given him. He then looked out for the next thing 
that might chance to offer ; and went, with indefati- 
gable industry, through a succession of servile employ- 
ments, in different places, of longer and shorter dura- 
tion, still scrupulously avoiding, as far as possible, the 
expense of a penny. He promptly seized every oppor^ 
tunity which could advance his design, without regard- 
ing the meanness of occupation or appearance. By 
this method he had gained, after a considerable time, 
money enough to purchase, in order to sell again, a few 
cattle, of which he had taken pains to understand the 
value. He speedily but cautiously turned his first 
gains into second advantages ; retained without a single 
deviation his extreme parsimony ; and thus advanced 
by degrees into larger transactions and incipient 
wealth. I did not hear, or hav^e forgotten the continu- 
ed course of his life : but the final result was, that he 
more than recovered his lost possessions, and died an 
inveterate miser, worth 60,000/. I have always recol- 
lected this as a signal instance, though in an unfortu- 
nate and ignoble direction, of decisive character, and 
of the extraordinary effect^ which, according to general 
laws, belongs to the strongest form of such a character. 

But not less decision has been displayed by men of 
virtue. In this distinction no man ever exceeded, or 
ever will exceed, for instance, the late illustrious 
Howard. 

The energy of his determination was so great, that 
if, instead of being habitual, it had been shown only 
for a short time on particular occasions, it would have 
appeared a vehement impetuosity ; but by being unin- 
termitted, it had an equability of manner which scarce- 
ly appeared to exceed the tone of a calm constancy, it 
was so totally the reverse of any thing like turbulence 
or agitation. It was the calmness of an intensity kept 
uniform by the nature of the human mind forbidding 
it to be more, and by the character of the individual 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 103 

forbidding it to be less. The habitual passion of his 
mind was a pitch of excitement and impulsion almost 
equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of 
common minds ; as a great river, in its customary state, 
is equal to a small or moderate one when swollen to a 
torrent. 

The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, 
and commencing them in action, was the same. I 
wonder what must have been the amount of that bribe, 
in emolument or pleasure, that would have detained 
him a week inactive after their final adjustment. The 
law which carries water down a declivity was not more 
unconquerable and invariable than the determination 
of his feelings toward the main object. The impor- 
tance of this object held his faculties in a state of deter- 
mination which was too rigid to be affected by lighter 
interests, and on which therefore the beauties of nature 
and of art had no power. He had no leisure feeling 
which he could spare to be diverted among the innu- 
merable varieties of the extensive scene which he 
traversed ; his subordinate feelings nearly lost their 
separate existence and operation, by falling into the 
grand one. There have not been wanting trivial 
minds, to mark this as a fault in his character. But 
the mere men of taste ought to be silent respecting 
such a man as Howard ; he is above their sphere of 
judgment. The invisible spirits, who fulfil their com- 
mission of philanthropy among mortals, do not care 
about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings ; and 
no more did he, when the time in which he must have 
inspected and admired them, would have been taken 
from the wqrk to which he had consecrated his life. 
The curios% which he might feel, was reduced to 
wait till the hour should arrive, when its gratification 
should be presented by conscience, (which kept a scru- 
pulous charge of all his time.J as the duty of that hour. 
If he was still at every hour, when it came, fated to 
feel the attractions of the fine arts but the second claim, 



104 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

they might be sure of their revenge ; for no other 
man will ever visit Rone under such a despotic ac- 
knowledged rule of duty, as to refuse himself time for 
surveying the magnificence of its ruins. Such a sin 
against taste is very far beyond the reach of common 
saintship to commit. It implied an inconceivable se- 
verity of conviction, that he had one thing to do, and 
that he who would do some great thing in this short 
life, must apply himself to the work with such a con- 
centration of his forces, as, to idle spectators, who live 
only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity. 

His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed 
on his object, that even at the greatest distance, as the 
Egyptian pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him 
with a luminous distinctness as if it had been nigh, and 
beguiled the toilsome length of labour and enterprise 
by which he was to reach it. So conspicuous was it 
before him, that not a step deviated from the direction, 
and every movement and every day was an approxi- 
mation. As his method referred every thing he did 
and thought to the end, and as his exertion did not 
relax for a moment, he made the trial, so seldom made, 
what is the utmost effect which may be granted to the 
last possible efforts of a human agent : and therefore 
what he did not accomplish, he might conclude to be 
placed beyond the sphere of mortal activity, and calmly 
leave to the immediate disposal of Providence. 

Unless the eternal happiness of mankind be an in- 
significant concern, and the passion to promote it an 
inglorious distinction, I may cite George Whitefield as 
a noble instance of this attribute of the decisive char- 
acter, this intense necessity of action. The great 
cause which was so languid a thing in the hands of 
many of its advocates, assumed in his administrations 
an unmitigable urgency. 

Many of the christian missionaries among the 
heathens, such as Brainerd, Elliot, and Schwartz, have 
displayed memoraU.e examples of this dedication of 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 105 

their whole being to their office, this abjuration of all 
the quiescent feeling's. 

This would be the proper place for introducing (if 
I did not hesitate to introduce in any connexion with 
merely human instances) the example of him who said, 
" I must be about my Father's business. My meat and 
drink is to do the will of him that sent me, and to 
finish his work. I have a baptism to be baptized with, 
and how am 1 straitened till it be accomplished !" 



LETTER IV. 

After tne illustrations on the last article, it will 
seem but a very slight transition when I proceed to 
specify Courage, as an essential part of the decisive 
character. An intelligent man, adventurous only in 
thought, may sketch the most excellent scheme, and 
after duly admiring it, and himself as its author, may 
be reduced to say. What a noble spirit that would be 
which should dare to realize this ! A noble spirit ! is 
it I ? And his heart may answer in the negative, 
while he glances a mortified thought of inquiry round 
to recollect persons who would venture what he dares 
not, and almost hopes not to find them. Or if by ex- 
treme effort he has brought himself to a resolution of 
braving the difficulty, he is compelled to execrate the 
timid lingerings that still keep him back from the trial. 
A man endowed with the complete character, might 
say, with a sober consciousness as remote from the 
spirit of bravado as it is from timidity. Thus, and thus, 
is my conviction and my determination ; now for the 
phantoms of fear ; let me look them in the face ; their 
menacing glare and ominous tones will be lost on me ; 
" I dare do all that may become a man." I trust I 
shall firmly confront every thing that threatens me 



106 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

/While prosecuting my purpose, and I am prepared to 
'meet the consequences of it when it is accomplished. 
/ I should despise a being, though it were myself, whose 
agency could be held enslaved by the gloomy shapes 
of imagination, by the haunting recollections of a 
dream, by the whistling or the howling of winds, by 
the shriek of owls, by the shades of midnight, or by 
the threats or frowns of man. I should be indignant 
to feel that, in the commencement of an adventure, I 
could think of nothing but the deep pit by the side of 
the way where I must walk, into which I may slide, 
the mad animal which it is not impossible that I may 
meet, or the assassin who may lurk in a thicket of 
yonder wood. And I disdain to compromise the in- 
terests that rouse me to action, for the privilege of an 
ignoble security. 

As the conduct of a man of decision is always indi- 
vidual, and often singular, he may expect some serious 
trials of courage. For one thing, he may be encoun- 
tered by the strongest disapprobation of many of his 
connexions, and the censure of the greater part of the 
society where he is known. In this case, it is not a 
man of common spirit that can show himself just as at 
other times, and meet their anger in the same undis- 
turbed manner as he would meet some ordinary in- 
clemency of the weather ; that can, without harshness 
or violence, continue to effect every moment some part 
of his design, coolly replying to each ungracious look 
and indignant voice, I am sorry to oppose 3^ou : I am 
not unfriendly to you, while thus persisting in what 
excites your displeasure ; it would please me to have 
your approbation and concurrence, and I think I should 
have them if you would seriously consider my reasons ; 
but meanwhile, I am superior to opinion, I am not to 
be intimidated by reproaches, nor would your favour 
and applause be any reward for the sacrifice of my 
object. As you can do without my approbation, I can 
certainly do without yours ; it is enough that I can 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 107 

approve myself, it is enough that I appeal to the last 
authority in the creation. Amuse yourselves as you 
may, by continuing to censure or to rail ; / must con- 
tinue to act. 

The attack of contempt and ridicule is perhaps a 
still greater trial of courage. It is felt by all to be an 
admirable thing, when it can in no degree be ascribed 
to the hardness of either stupidity or confirmed deprav- 
ity, to sustain for a considerable time, or in numerous 
instances, the looks of scorn, or an unrestrained shower 
of taunts and jeers, with perfect composure, and proceed 
immediately after, or at the time, on the business that 
provokes all this ridicule. This invincibility of temper 
will often make even the scoffers themselves tired of 
the sport : they begin to feel that against such a man 
it is a poor sort of hostility to joke and sneer ; and there 
is nothing that people are more mortified to spend in 
vain than their scorn. Till, however, a man shall be- 
come a veteran, he must reckon on sometimes meet- 
ing this trial in the course of virtuous enterprise. And 
if, at the suggestion of some meritorious but unprece- 
dented proceeding, I hear him ask, with a look and 
tone of shrinking alarm, But will they not laugh at 
me ? — I know that he is not the person whom this es- 
say attempts to describe. A man of the right kind 
would say, They will smile, they will laugh, will they? 
Much good may it do them. I have something else to 
do than to trouble myself about their mirth I do not 
care if the whole neighbourhood were to laugh in a 
chorus. I should indeed be sorry to see or hear such 
a number of fools, but pleased enough to find that they 
considered me as an outlaw to their tribe. The good 
to result from my project will not be less, because vain 
and shallow minds that cannot understand it, are di- 
verted at it and at me. What should I think of my 
pursuits, if every trivial thoughtless being could com- 
prehend or would applaud them ; and of myself, if my 



108 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

courage needed levity and ignorance for their allies, or 
could be abashed at their sneers 1 

I remember, that on reading the account of the pro- 
ject for conquering Peru, formed by Almagro, Pizarro, 
and De Luques, while abhorring the actuating princi- 
ple of the men, I could not help admiring the hardi- 
hood of mind which made them regardless of scorn. 
These three individuals, before they had obtained any 
associates, or arms, or soldiers, or more than a very 
imperfect knowledge of the power of the kingdom they 
were to conquer, celebrated a solemn mass in one of 
the great churches, as a pledge and a commencement 
of the enterprise, amidst the astonishment and contempt 
expressed by a multitude of people for what was deem- 
ed a monstrous project. They, however, proceeded 
through the service, and afterwards to their respective 
departments of preparation, with an apparently entire 
insensibility to all this triumphant contempt ; and thus 
gave the first proof of possessing that invincible firm- 
ness with which they afterwards prosecuted their design, 
till they attained a success, the destructive process and 
many of the results of which humanity has ever de- 
plored. 

Milton's Abdiel is a noble illustration of the courage 
that rises invincible above the derision not only of the 
multitude, but of the proud and elevated. 

But there may be situations where decision of char- 
acter will be brought to trial against evils of a darker 
aspect than disapprobation or contempt. There may 
be the threatening of serious sufferings ; and very of- 
ten, to dare as far as conscience or a great cause requi- 
red, has been to dare to die. In almost all plans of 
great enterprise, a man must systematically dismiss, at 
the entrance, every wish to stipulate with his destiny 
for safety. He voluntarily treads within the precincts 
of danger ; and though it be possible he may escape, 
he ought to be prepared with the fortitude of a self de- 
voted victim. This is the inevitable condition on which 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 109 

heroes, travellers or missionaries among savage nations, 
and reformers on a grand scale, must commence their 
career. Either they must allay their fire of enter- 
prise, or abide the liability to be exploded by it from 
the world. 

The last decisive energy of a rational courage, which 
confides in the Supreme Power, is very sublime. It 
makes a man who intrepidly dares every thing that 
can oppose or attack him within the whole sphere of 
mortality ; who will still press toward his object while 
death is impending over him ; who would retain his 
purpose unshaken amidst the ruins of the world. 

It was in the true elevation of this character that 
Luther, when cited to appear at the Diet of Worms, 
under a very questionable assurance of safety from high 
authority, said to his friends, who conjured him not to 
go, and warned him by the example of John Huss, 
whom, in a similar situation, the same pledge of pro- 
tection had not saved from the fire, '• I am called 
in the name of God to go, and I would go, though I 
were certain to meet as many devils in Worms as there 
are tiles on the houses." 

A reader of the Bible will not forget Daniel, braving 
in calm devotion the decree which virtually consigned 
him to the den of lions : or Shadrach, Meshach, and> 
Abed-nego, saying to the tyrant, " We are not careful] 
to answer thee in this matter," when the "burning\ 
fiery" furnace was in sight. ) 

The combination of these several essential principles 
constitutes that state of mind which is a grand requi- 
site to decision of character, and perhaps its most stri- 
king distinction — the full agreement of the mind with 
itself, the consenting co-operation of all its powers and 
all its dispositions. 

What an unfortunate task it would be for a char- 
ioteer, who had harnessed a set of horses, however 
strong, if he could not make them draw together ; if 
10 



110 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

while one of them would go forward, another was res- 
tiff, another struggled backward, another started aside. 
If even one of the four were unmanageably perverse, 
while the three were tractable, an aged beggar with 
his crutch might leave Phaeton behind. So in a hu- 
man being, unless the chief forces act consentaneously 
there can be no inflexible vigour, either of will or ex- 
ecution. One dissentient principle in the mind not 
, only deducts so much from the strength and mass 
I of its agency, but counteracts and embarrasses all the 
) rest. If the judgment holds in low estimation that 
I which yet the passions incline to pursue, the pursuit 
I will be irregular and inconstant, though it may have 
occasional fits of animation, when those passions hap- 
pen to be highly stimulated. If there is an opposition 
between judgment and habit, though the man will 
probably continue to act mainly under the sway of 
habit in spite of his opinions, yet sometimes the inr 
trusion of those opinions will have for the moment an 
effect like that of Prospero's wand on the limbs of 
Ferdinand ; and to be alternately impelled by habit, 
and checked by opinion, will be a state of vexatious 
debility. If two principal passions are opposed to each 
other, they will utterly distract any mind, whatever 
might be the force of its faculties if acting without em- 
barrassment. The one passion may be somewhat 
stronger than the other, and therefore just prevail bare- 
ly enough to give a feeble impulse to the conduct of 
the man ; a feebleness which will continue till there 
be a greater disparity between these rivals, in conse- 
quence of a reinforcement to the slightly ascendent one, 
by new impressions or the gradual strengthening of 
habit forming in its favour. The disparity must be no 
less than an absolute predominance of the one and subjec- 
tion of the other, before the prevailing passion will have 
at liberty from the intestine conflict any large measure 
of its force to throw activity into the system of conduct. 
If, for instance, a man feels at once the love of fame 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. Ill 

which is to be gained only by arduous exertions, and 
an equal degree of the love of ease or pleasure which 
precludes those exertions ; if he is eager to show off 
in splendour, and yet anxious to save money ; if he 
has the curiosity of adventure, and yet that solicitude 
for safety, which forbids him to climb a precipice, 
descend into a cavern, or explore a dangerous wild ; 
if he has the stern will of a tyrant, and yet the relent- 
ings of a man ; if he has the ambition to domineer 
over his fellow-mortals, counteracted by a reluctance 
to inflict so much mischief as it might cost to subdue 
them ; we may anticipate the irresolute contradictory 
tenour of his actions. Especially if conscience, that 
great troubler of the human breast, loudly declares 
against a man's wishes or projects, it will be a fatal 
enemy to decision, till it either reclaim the delinquent 
passions, or be debauched or laid dead by them. 

Lady Macbeth may be cited as a harmonious char- 
acter, though the epithet seem strangely applied. She 
had capacity, ambition, and courage ; and she willed 
the death of the king. Macbeth had still more ca- 
pacity, ambition, and courage ; and he also willed the 
murder of the king. But he had besides humanity, 
generosity, conscience, and some measure of what forms 
the poioer of conscience, the fear of a Superior Being, 
Consequently, when the dreadful moment approached, 
he felt an insupportable conflict between these opposite 
principles, and when it was arrived his utmost courage 
began to fail. The worst part of his nature fell pros- 
trate under the power of the better ; the angel of good- 
ness arrested the demon that grasped the dagger ; and 
would have taken that dagger away, if the pure de- 
moniac firmness of his wife, who had none of these 
counteracting principles, had not shamed and hardened 
him to the deed. 

The poet's delineation of Richard III. offers a dread- 
ful specimen of this indivisibility of mental impulse, 
Afler his determination was fixed, the whole mind with 



112 ON DECISION OP CHARACTER. 

the compactest fidelity supported him in prosecuting it 
Securely privileged from all interference of doubt that 
could linger, or humanity that could soften, or timidity 
that could shrink, he advanced with a concentrated 
constancy through scene after scene of atrocity, still 
fulfilling his vow to " cut his way through with a 
bloody axe." He did not waver while he pursued his 
object, nor relent when he seized it. 

Cromwell (whom I mention as a parallel, of course 
not to Richard's wickedness, but to his inflexible vig- 
our,) lost his mental consistency in the latter end of a 
career which had displayed a superlative example of 
decision. It appears that the wish to be a king, at last 
arose in a mind which had contemned royalty, and 
battled it from the land. As far as he really had any 
republican principles and partialities, this new desire 
must have been a very untoward associate for them, 
and must have produced a schism in the breast where 
all the strong forces of thought and passion had acted 
till then in concord. The new form of ambition be- 
came just predominant enough to carry him, by slow 
degrees, through the embarrassment and the shame of 
this incongruity, into an irresolute determination to as- 
sume the crov^^n ; so irresolute, that he was reduced 
again to a mortifying indecision by the remonstrances 
of some of his friends, which he could have slighted., 
and by an apprehension of the public disapprobation, 
which he could have braved, if some of the principles 
of his own mind had not shrunk or revolted from the 
design. When at last the motives for relinquishing 
this design prevailed, it was by so small a degree of 
preponderance, that his reluctant refusal of the offered 
crown was the voice of only half his soul. 

Not only two distinct counteracting passions, but one 
passion interested for two objects, both equally desira- 
ble, but of which the one must be sacrificed, may an- 
nihilate in that instance the possibility of a resolute 
promptitude of conduct. I recollect reading in an old 
9 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 113 

divine, a story from some historian, applicable to this 
remark. A father went to the agents of a tyrant, to 
endeavour to redeem his two sons, military men, tvho, 
with some other captives of war, were condemned to 
die. He offered, as a ransom, a sum of money, and to 
surrender his own life. The tyrant's agents who had 
them in charge, informed him that this equivalent 
would be accepted for one of his sons, and for one 
only, because they should be accountable for the ex- 
ecution of two persons ; he might therefore choose 
which he would redeem. Anxious to save even one 
of them thus at the expense of his own life, he yet was 
unable to decide which should die, by choosing the 
other to live, and remained in the agony of this dilem- 
ma so long that they were both irreversibly ordered for 
execution. 



LETTER V. 

It were absurd to suppose that any human being 
can attain a state of mind capable of acting in all in- 
stances invariably with the full power of determina- 
tion ; but it is obvious that many have possessed a 
habitual and very commanding measure of it ; and I 
think the preceding remarks have taken account of its 
chief characteristics and constituent principles. A 
number of additional observations remains. 

The slightest view of human affairs shows what 
fatal and wide-spread mischief may be caused by men 
of this character, when misled or wicked. You have 
but to recollect the conquerors, despots, bigots, unjust 
conspirators, and signal villains of every class, who 
have blasted society by the relentless vigour which 
could act consistently and heroically wrong. Till 
tfierefore the virtue of mankind be greater, there is 
10* 



114 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

reason to be pleased that so few of them are endowed 
with extraordinary decision. 

Even when dignified by wisdom and principle, this 
quality requires great care in the possessors of it to pre- 
vent its becoming unamiable. As it involves much 
practical assertion of superiority over other human be- 
ings, it should be as temperate and conciliating as pos- 
sible in manner ; else pride will feel provoked, affec- 
tion hurt, and weakness oppressed. But this is not 
the manner which will be most natural to such a man ; 
rather it will be high-toned, laconic, and careless of 
pleasing. He will have the appearance of keeping 
himself always at a distance from social equality; and 
his friends will feel as if their friendship were contin- 
ually sliding into subserviency; while his intimate 
connexions will think he does not attach the due im- 
portance either to their opinions or to their regard. 
His manner, when they differ from him, or complain, 
will be too much like the expression of slight estima- 
tion, and sometimes of disdain. 

When he can accomplish a design by his own per- 
sonal means alone, he may be disposed to separate 
himself to the work with the cold self-enclosed in- 
dividuality on which no one has any hold, which 
seems to recognise no kindred being in the world, 
which takes little account of good wishes and kind 
concern, any more than it cares for opposition ; which 
seeks neither aid nor sympathy, and seems to say, I do 
not want any of you, and I am glad that I do not ; 
leave me alone to succeed or die. This has a very re- 
pellent effect on the friends who wished to feel them- 
selves of some importance, in some way or other, to a 
person whom they are constrained to respect. When 
assistance is indispensable to his undertakings, his 
mode of signifying it will seem to command, rather 
than invite, the co-operation. 

In consultation, his manner will indicate that when 
he is equally with the rest in possession of the circum- 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 115 

Stances of the case, he does not at all expect to hear 
any opinions that shall correct his own ; but is sat- 
isfied that either his present conception of the subject 
is the just one, or that his own mind must originate 
that which shall be so. This difference will be appa- 
rent between him and his associates, that their manner 
of receiving his opinions is that of agreement or dis- 
sent; Ais manner of receiving theirs is judicial — that 
of sanction or rejection. He has the tone of authori- 
tatively deciding on what they say, but never of submit- 
ting to decision what himself says. Their coincidence 
with his views does not give him a firmer assurance of 
his being right, nor their dissent any other impression 
than that of their incapacity to judge. If his feeling 
took the distinct form of a reflection, it would be, 
Mine is the business of comprehending and devising, 
and 1 am here to rule this company, and not to consult 
them ; I want their docility, and not their arguments ; 
I am come, not to seek their assistance in thinking, 
but to determine their concurrence in executing what 
is already thought for them. Of course, many sugges- 
tions and reasons which appear important to those they 
come from will be disposed of by him with a transient 
attention, or a light facility, that will seem very dis- 
respectful to persons who possibly hesitate to admit 
that he is a demi-god, and that they are but idiots. 
Lord Chatham, in going out of the House of Commons, 
just as one of the speakers against him concluded his 
speech by emphatically urging what he perhaps rightly 
thought the unanswerable question, " Where can we 
find means to support such a war?" turned round a 
moment, and gaily chanted, " Gentle shepherd tell me 
where ?" 

Even the assenting convictions, and practical com- 
pliances, yielded by degrees to this decisive man, may 
be somewhat undervalued ; as they will appear to him 
no more than simply coming, and that very slowly, to 
a right apprehension j whereas he understood and de 



116 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

cided justly from the first, and has been right all this 
while. 

He will be in danger of rejecting the just claims of 
charity for a little tolerance to the prejudices, hesitation, 
and timidity, of those with whom he has to act. He 
will say to himself, I wish there were anything like 
manhood among the beings called men ; and that they 
could have the sense and spirit not to let themselves be 
hampered by so many silly notions and childish fears ! 
Why cannot they either determine with some promp- 
titude, or let me. that can, do it for them ? Am I to 
wait till debility become strong, and folly wise 1 — If 
full scope be allowed to these tendencies, they may 
give too much of the character of a tyrant to even a 
man of elevated virtue, since, in the consciousness of 
the right intention, and the assurance of the wise con- 
trivance, of his designs, he will hold himself justified 
in being regardless of every thing but the accomplish- 
ment of them. He will forget all respect for the feel- 
ings and liberties of beings w^ho are accounted but a 
subordinate machinery, to be actuated, or to be thrown 
aside when not actuated, by the spring of his command- 
ing spirit. 

I have before asserted that this strong character may 
he exhibited with a mildness, or at least temperance, 
of manner ; and that, generally, it will thus best se- 
cure its efficacy. But this mildness must often be at 
the cost of great effort ; and how much considerate 
policy or benevolent forbearance it will require, for a 
man to exert his utmost vigour in the very task, as it 
will appear to him at the time, of cramping that vigour ! 
— Lycurgus appears to have been a high example of 
conciliating patience in the resolute prosecution of de- 
signs to be elTected among a perverse multitude. 

It is probable that the men most distinguished for 
decision, have not in general possessed a large share of 
tenderness ; and it is easy to imagine, that the laws of 
our nature will, with great difficulty, allow the com- 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 117 

bination of the refined sensibilities with a hard, never- 
shrinking, never-yielding firmness. Is it not almost of 
the essence of this temperament to be free from even 
the perception of such impressions as cause a mind, 
weak through susceptibility, to relax or waver ; just as 
the skin of the elephant, or the armour of the rhino- 
ceros, would be but indistinctly sensible to the applica- 
tion of a force by which a small animal, with a skin of 
thin and delicate texture, would be pierced or lacerated 
to death ? No doubt, this firmness consists partly in a 
commanding and repressive power over feelings, but it 
may consist fully as much in not having them. To be 
exquisitely alive to gentle impressions, and yet to be 
able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design re- 
quires it, an immovable heart amidst the most im- 
perious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an 
impossible constitution of mind, but it must be the 
rarest endowment of humanity. 

If you take a view of the first rank of decisive men, 
you will observe that their faculties have been too much 
bent to arduous effort, their souls have been kept in too 
military an attitude, they have been begirt with too 
much iron, for the melting movements of the heart. 
Their whole being appears too much arrogated and oc- 
cupied by the spirit of severe design, urging them to- 
ward some defined end, to be sufficiently at ease for 
the indolent complacency, the soft lassitude of gentle 
affections, which love to surrender themselves to the 
present felicities, forgetful of all " enterprises of great 
pith and moment." The man seems rigorously intent 
still on his own affairs, as he walks, or regales, or min- 
gles with domestic society ; and appears to despise all 
the feelings that will not take rank with the grave la- 
bours and decisions of intellect, or coalesce with the un- 
remitting passion which is his spring of action ; he 
values not feelings which he cannot employ either as 
weapons or as engines. He loves to be actuated by a 
passion so strong as to compel into exercise the utmost 



118 ON DECISION OP CHARACTER. 

force of his being, and fix him in a tone, compared 
with which, the gentle affections, if he had felt them, 
would be accounted tameness, and their exciting causes 
insipidity. 

Yet we cannot willingly admit that those gentle 
affections are totally incompatible with the most im- 
pregnable resolution and vigour; nor can we help 
believing that such men as Timoleon, Alfred, and 
Gustavus Adolphus, must have been very fascinating 
associates in private and domestic life, whenever the 
urgency of their affairs would allow them to withdraw 
from the interests of statesmen and warriors, to indulge 
the affections of men : most fascinating, for, with 
relations or friends who had any right perceptions, an 
effect of the strong character would be recognised in 
a peculiar charm imparted by it to the gentle moods 
and seasons. The firmness and energy of the man 
whom nothing could subdue, would exalt the quality 
of the tenderness which softened him to recline. 

But it were much easier to enumerate a long train 
of ancient and modern examples of the vigour un- 
mitigated by the sensibility. Perhaps indeed these 
indomitable spirits have yielded sometimes to some 
species of love, as a mode of amusing their passions 
for an interval, till greater engagements have sum- 
moned them into their proper element; when thej'- 
have shown how little the sentiment was an element 
of the heart, by the ease with which they could re- 
linquish the temporary favourite. In other cases, 
where there have not been the selfish inducements, 
which this passion supplies, to the exhibition of some- 
thing like softness, and where they have been left to 
the trial of what they might feel of the sympathies of 
humanity in their simplicity, no rock on earth could 
be harder. 

The celebrated King of Prussia occurs to me, as a 
capital instance of the decisive character ; and there 
occurs to me, at the same time, one of the anecdotes 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 119 

related of him.* Intending to make, in the night, an 
important movement in his camp, which was in sight 
of the enemy, he gave orders that by eight o'clock all 
the lights in the camp should be put out, on pain of 
death. The moment that the time was passed, he 
walked out himself to see whether all were dark. He 
found a light in the tent of a Captain Zietern, which 
he entered just as the officer was folding up a letter. 
Zietern knew him, and instantly fell on his knees to 
entreat his mercy. The king asked to whom he had 
been writing ; he said it was a letter to his wife, which 
he had retained the candle these few minutes beyond 
the time in order to finish. The king coolly ordered 
him to rise, and write one line more, which he should 
dictate. This line was to inform his wife, without an)'- 
explanation, that by such an hour the next day, he 
should be a dead man. The letter was then sealed, 
and despatched as it had been intended ; and, the next 
day, the captain was executed. I say nothing of the 
justice of the punishment itself; but this cool barbarity 
to the affection both of the officer and his wife, proved 
how little the decisive hero and reputed philosopher 
was capable of the tender affections, or of sympathizing 
with their pains. 

At the same time, it is proper to observe, that the 
case may easily occur, in which a man, sustaining a 
high responsibility, must be resolute to act in a manner 
which may make him appear to want the finer feelings. 
He may be placed under the necessity of doing what 

* The authenticity of this anecdote, which I read in some trifling 
fugitive pubHcation many years since, has been questioned. Pos- 
sibly enough it might be one of the many stories only half true 
which could not fail to go abroad concerning a man who made, in 
his day, so great a figure. But as it does not at all misrepresent the 
general character of his mind, since there are many incontrovertible 
facts, proving against him as great a degree of cruelty as this 
anecdote would charge on him, the want of means to prove this 
one fact does not seem to impose any necessity for omitting the illus- 
tration. 



120 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

he knows will cause pain to persons of a character to 
feel it severely. He may be obliged to resist affec- 
tionate wishes, expostulations, entreaties, and tears. 
Take this same instance. Suppose the wife of Zietern 
had come to supplicate for him, not only the remission 
of the punishment of death, but an exemption from any 
other severe punishment, which was perhaps justly due 
to the violation of such an order issued no doubt for 
important reasons; it had then probably been the duty 
and the virtue of the commander to deny the most 
interesting- suppliant, and to resist the most pathetic 
appeals which could have been made to his feelings. 



LETTER VI. 

Various circumstances might be specified as adapted 
to confirm such a character as I have attempted to 
describe. I shall notice two or three. 

And first, opposition. The passions which inspirit 
men to resistance, and sustain them in it, such as 
anger, indignation, and resentment, are evidently far 
stronger than those which have reference to friendly 
objects ; and if any of these strong passions are fre- 
quently excited by opposition, they infuse a certain 
quality into the general temperament of the mind, 
which remains after the immediate excitement is past. 
They continually strengthen the principle of re-action ; 
they put the mind in the habitual array of defence and 
self-assertion, and often give it the aspect and the 
posture of a gladiator, when there appears no con- 
fronting combatant. When these passions are provoked 
in such a person as I describe, it is probable that each 
excitement is followed by a greater increase of this 
principle of re-action than in other men, because this 
result is so congenial with his naturally resolute dis- 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 121 

position. Let him be opposed then, throughout the 
prosecution of one of his designs, or in the general 
tenour of his actions, and this constant opposition 
would render him the service of an ally, by augmenting 
the resisting and defying power of his mind. An irre- 
solute spirit indeed_might be quelled and subjugated 
by a formidable and persisting opposition ; but the 
strong wind which blows out a taper, exasperates a 
powerful fire (if there be fuel enough) to an indefinite 
intensity. It would be found, in fact, on a recollection 
of instances, that many of the persons most conspicuous 
for decision, have been exercised and forced to this 
high tone of spirit in having to make their way through 
opposition and contest ; a discipline under which they 
were wrought to both a prompt acuteness of faculty, 
and an inflexibility of temper, hardly attainable even 
by minds of great natural strength, if brought forward 
into the affairs of life under indulgent auspices, and in 
habits of easy and friendly coincidence with those 
around them. Often, however, it is granted, the 
firmness matured by such discipline is, in a man of 
virtue, accompanied with a Catonic severity, and in a 
mere man of the world is an unhumanized repulsive 
hardness. 

Desertion may be another cause conducive to the 
consolidation of this character. A kind mutually 
reclining dependence, is certainly for the happiness 
of human beings ; but this necessarily prevents the 
development of some great individual powers which 
would be forced .into action by a state of abandonment. 
I lately happened to notice, with some surprise, an 
ivy, which, finding nothing to cling to beyond a 
certain point, had shot ofif into a bold elastic stem, 
with an air of as much independence as any branch 
of oak in the vicinity. So a human being thrown, 
whether by cruelty, justice, or accident, from all social 
support and kindness, if he have any vigour of spirit, 
and be not in the bodily debility of either childhood 



122 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

or age, will begin to act for himself with a resolution 
which will appear like a new faculty. And the most 
absolute inflexibility is likely to characterize the reso- 
lution of an individual who is obliged to deliberate 
without consultation, and execute without assistance. 
He will disdain to yield to beings who have rejected 
him, or to forego a particle of his designs or advantages 
in concession to the opinions or the will of all the 
world. Himself, his pursuits, and his interests, are 
emphatically his own. " The world is not his friend, 
nor the world's law ;" and therefore he becomes re- 
gardless of every thing but its power, of which his 
policy carefuHy takes the measure, in order to ascer- 
tain his own means of action and impunity, as set 
against the world's means of annoyance, prevention, 
and retaliation. 

If this person have but little humanity or principle, 
he will become a misanthrope, or perhaps a villain, 
who will resemble a solitary wild beast of the night, 
which makes prey of every thing it can overpower, 
and cares for nothing but fire. If he be capable of 
grand conception and enterprise, he may, like Spar- 
tacus, make a daring attempt against the whole social 
order of the state where he has been oppressed. If he 
be of great humanity and principle, he may become 
one of the noblest of mankind, and display a generous 
virtue to which society had no claim, and w^hich it is 
not worthy to reward, if it should at last become in- 
clined. No, he will say, give your rewards to another ; 
as it has been no part of my object to gain them, they 
are not necessary to my satisfaction. I have done good, 
without expecting your gratitude, and without caring 
for your approbation. If conscience and my Creator 
had not been more auspicious ihan you, none of these 
virtues would ever have opent^d to the day. When 
I ought to have been an object of your compassion, I 
might have perished ; now when you find I can serve 
your interests, you will affect to acknowledge me and 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 123 

reward me ; but I will abide by my destiny to verify 
the principle that virtue is its own reward. — In either 
case, virtuous or wicked, the man who has been 
compelled to do without assistance, will spurn inter- 
ference. 

Common life would supply illustrations of the effect 
of desertion, in examples of some of the most resolute 
men having become such partly from being left friend- 
less in early life. The case has also sometimes hap- 
pened, that a wife and mother, remarkable perhaps for 
gentleness and acquiescence before, has been compel- 
led, after the death of her husband on whom she de- 
pended, and when she has met with nothing but ne- 
glect or unkindness from relations and those who had 
been accounted friends, to adopt a plan of her own, and 
has executed it with a resolution which has astonish- 
ed even herself 

One regrets that the signal examples, real or ficti- 
tious, that most readily present themselves, are still of 
the depraved order. I fancy myself to see Marius 
sitting on the ruins of Carthage, where no arch or 
column, that remained unshaken amidst the desolation, 
could present a stronger image of a firmness beyond 
the power of disaster to subdue. The rigid constancy 
which had before distinguished his character, would be 
aggravated by his finding himself thus an outcast from 
all human society ; and he would proudly shake off 
every sentiment that had ever for an instant checked 
his designs in the way of reminding him of social ob- 
ligations. The lonely individual was placed in the 
alternative of becoming the victim or the antagonist 
of the power of the empire. While, with a spirit ca- 
pable of confronting that power, he resolved, amidst 
those ruins, on a great experiment, he would enjoy a 
kind of sullen luxury in surveying the dreary situa- 
tion into which he was driven, and recollecting the cir- 
cumstances of his expulsion ; since they would seem 
to him to sanction an unlimited vengeance ; to present 



124 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

what had been his country as the pure leg-itimate prize 
for desperate achievement ; and to give him a proud 
consequence in being reduced to maintain singly a 
mortal quarrel against the bulk of mankind. He 
would exult that the very desolation of his condition 
rendered but the more complete the proof of his pos- 
sessing a mind which no misfortunes could repress or 
intimidate, and that it kindled an animosity intense 
enough to force that mind from firm endurance into 
impetuous action. He would feel that he became 
stronger for enterprise, in proportion as his exile and 
destitution rendered him more inexorable ; and the 
sentiment with which he quitted his solitude would 
be, — Rome expelled her patriot, let her receive her 
evil genius. 

The decision of Satan, in Paradise Lost, is repre- 
sented as consolidated by his reflections on his hopeless 
banishment from heaven, which oppress him with sad- 
ness for some moments, but he soon resumes his in- 
vincible spirit, and utters the impious but sublime sen' 
timent, 

" What matter where, if / be still the same." 

You remember how this effect of desertion is repre- 
sented in Charles de Moor.* His father's supposed 
cruel rejection consigned him irretrievably to the career 
of atrocious enterprise, in which, notwithstanding the 
most interesting emotions of humanity and tenderness, 
he persisted with heroic determination till he consider- 
ed his destiny as accomplished. 

Success tends considerably to reinforce this com- 
manding quality. It is ti'ue that a man possessing it 
in a high degree will not lose it by occasional failure ; 
for if the failure was caused by something entirely, 
beyond the reach of human knowledge and ability, 
he will remember that fortitude is the virtue required 

^ * A wildf.y extravagant, certainly, but most imposing and gigan- 
tic chara^cter in Schiller's tragedy, The Bobbers. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 125 

in meeting unfavourable events which in no sense 
depended on him ; if by something- which might have 
been known and prevented, he will feel that even the 
experience of failure completes his competence, by ad- 
monishing his prudence, and enlarging his understand- 
ing. But as schemes and measures of action rightly 
adjusted to their proposed ends will generally attain 
them, continual failure would show something essen- 
tially wrong in a man's system, and destroy his confi- 
dence, or else expose it as mere absurdity or obstinacy. 
On the contrary, when a man has ascertained by ex- 
periment the justness of his calculations and the extent 
of his powers, when he has measured his force with 
various persons, when he has braved and vanquished 
difficulty, and partly seized the prize, he will carry for- 
ward the result of all this in an intrepid self-sufficiency 
for whatever may yet await him. 

In some men, whose lives have been spent in con- 
stant perils, continued success has produced a confi- 
dence beyond its rational effect, by inspiring a presump- 
tion that the common laws of human affairs were, in 
their case, superseded by the decrees of a peculiar des- 
tiny, securing them from almost the possibility of dis- 
aster ; and this superstitious feeling, though it has dis- 
placed the unconquerable resolution from its rational 
basis, has often produced the most wonderful effects. 
This dictated Caesar's expression to the mariner who 
was terrified at the storm and billows, " What art thou 
afraid of? — thy vessel carries Cassar." The brave 
men in the times of the English Commonwealth were, 
some of them, indebted in a degree for their magna- 
nimity to this idea of a special destination, entertained 
as a religious sentiment. 

The wilfulness of an obstinate person is sometimes 
fortified by some single instance of remarkable success 
in his undertakings, which is promptly recalled in 
every case where his decisions are questioned or op- 
posed, as a proof, or ground of just presumption, that 
11* 



126 ON DECISION OF CHARAGTER. 

he must in this instance too be right; especially if 
that one success happened contrary to your predictions. 

I shall only add, and without illustration, that the 
habit of associating with inferiors^ among whom a man 
can always, and therefore does always, take the prece- 
dence and give the law, is conducive to a subordinate 
coarse kind of decision of character. You may see 
this exemplified any day in an ignorant country 'squire 
among his vassals ; especially if he wear the lordly 
superaddition of Justice of the Peace. 

In viewing the characters and actions of the men 
who have possessed in imperial eminence the quality 
which I have attempted to describe, one cannot but 
wish it were possible to know how much of this mighty 
superiority was created by the circumstances in which 
they were placed ; but it is inevitable to believe that 
there was some vast intrinsic difference from ordinary 
men in the original constitutional structure of the mind. 
In observing lately a man who appeared too vacant 
almost to think of a purpose, too indifferent to resolve 
upon it, and too sluggish to execute it if he had resolv- 
ed, I was distinctly struck with the idea of the dis- 
tance between him and Marius, of whom I happened 
to have been reading; and it was infinitely beyond 
my power to believe that any circumstances on earth, 
though ever so perfectly combined and adapted, would 
have produced in this man, if placed under their full- 
est influence from his childhood, any resemblance (un- 
less perhaps the courage to enact a diminutive imitation 
in revenge and cruelty) of the formidable Roman. 

It is needless to discuss whether a person who is 
practically evinced, at the age of maturity, to want the 
stamina of this character, can, by any process, acquire 
it. Indeed such a person cannot have sufficient force 
of will to make the complete experiment. If there 
were the unconquerable toill that would persist to seize 
all possible means, and apply them in order to attain, 
if I may so express it, this stronger mode of active exist* 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 127 

ence, it would prove the possession already of a high 
degree of the character sought ; and if there is not 
this will^ how then is the supposed attainment possi- 
ble? 

Yet though it is improbable that a very irresolute 
man can ever become a habitually decisive one, it 
should be observed, that since there are degrees of this 
powerful quality, and since the essential principles of 
it, when partially existing in those degrees, cannot be 
supposed subject to definite and ultimate limitation, 
like the dimension of the bodily stature, it might be 
possible to apply a discipline which should advance a 
man from the lowest degree to the next, from that to 
the third, and how much further — it will be worth his 
trying if his first successful experiments have not cost 
more in the efforts for making the attainment, than 
he judges likely to be repaid by any good he shall 
gain from its exercise. I have but a very imperfect 
conception of the discipline ; but will suggest a hint or 
two. 

In the first place, the indispensable necessity of a 
clear and comprehensive knowledge of the concerns be- 
fore us, seems too obvious for remark ; and yet no man 
has been sufficiently sensible of it, till he has been 
placed in circumstances which forced him to act before 
he had time, or after he had made ineffectual efforts, 
to obtain the needful information and understanding. 
The pain of having brought things to an unfortunate 
issue, is hardly greater than that of proceeding in the 
conscious ignorance which continually threatens such 
an issue. While thus proceeding at hazard, under 
some compulsion which makes it impossible for him to 
remain in inaction, a man looks round for information 
as eagerly as a benighted wanderer would for the light 
of a human dwelling. He perhaps labours to recall 
what he thinks he once heard or read as relating to a 
similar situation, without dreaming at that time that 
such instruction could ever come to be of importance 



128 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

to him ; and is distressed to find his best recollection so 
indistinct as to be useless. He would give a consider- 
able sum, if some particular book could be brought to 
him at the instant ; or a certain document which he 
believes to be in existence ; or the detail of a process, 
the terms of a prescription, or the model of an imple- 
ment. He thinks how many people know, without its 
being of any present use to them, exactly what could 
be of such important service to him, if he could know 
it. In some cases, a line, a sentence, a monosyllable 
of affirming or denying, or a momentary sight of an 
object, would be inexpressibly valuable and welcome. 
And he resolves that if he can once happily escape 
from the present difficulty, he will apply himself day 
and night to obtain knowledge, not concerning one 
particular matter only, but divers others, in provision 
against possible emergencies, rather than be so involv- 
ed and harassed again. It might really be of service 
to have been occasionally forced to act under the dis-' 
advantage of conscious ignorance (if the affair was not 
so important as to allow the consequence to be very 
injurious), as an effectual lesson on the necessity of 
knowledge in order to decision either of plan or exe- 
cution. It must indeed be an extreme case that will 
compel a considerate man to act in the absence of know- 
ledge ; yet he may sometimes be necessitated to pro- 
ceed to action, when he is sensible his information is 
far from extending to the whole of the concern in which 
he is going to commit himself And in this case, he 
will feel no little uneasiness, while transacting that part 
of it in which his knowledge is competent, when he 
looks forward to the point where that knowledge ter- 
minates ; unless he be conscious of possessing an ex- 
ceedingly prompt faculty of catching information at 
the moment that he wants it for use ; as Indians set 
out on a long journey with but a trifling stock of pro- 
vision, because they are sure that their bows or guns will 
procure it by the way. It is one of the nicest points 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 129 

of wisdom to decide how much less than complete 
knowledge, in any question of practical interest, will 
warrant a man to venture on an undertaking, in the 
presumption that the deficiency Avill be supplied in time 
to prevent either perplexity or disaster. 

A thousand familiar instances show the effect of 
complete knowledge on determination. An artisan 
may be said to be decisive as to the mode of Avorking 
a piece of iron or wood, because he is certain of the 
proper process and the effect. A man perfectly ac- 
quainted with the intricate paths of a woodland district, 
takes the right one without a moment's hesitation ; 
while a stranger, who has only some very vague infor- 
mation, is lost in perplexity. It is easy to imagine what 
a number of circumstances may occur in the course of 
a life or even of a year, in which a man cannot thus read- 
ily determine, and thus confidently proceed without a 
compass and an exactness of knowledge which few 
persons have application enough to acquire. And it 
would be frightful to know to what extent human 
interests are committed to the direction of ignorance. 
What a consolatory doctrine is that of a particular 
Providence ! 

In connexion with the necessity of knowledge, I 
would suggest the importance of cultivating, with the 
utmost industry, a conclusive manner of thinking. In 
the first place, let the general course of thinking 
partake of the nature of reasoning; and let it be 
remembered that this name does not belong to a series 
of thoughts and fancies which follow one another 
without deduction or dependence, and which can there- 
fore no more bring a subject to a proper issue, than a 
number of separate links will answer the mechanical 
purpose of a chain. The conclusion which terminates 
such a series, does not deserve the name of result or 
conclusion, since it has little more than a casual con- 
nexion with what went before ; the conclusion might 
as properly have taken place at an earlier point of the 



130 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

train, or have been deferred till that train had been 
extended much further. Instead of having been busily- 
employed in this kind of thinking, for perhaps many 
hours, a man might possibly as well have been sleeping 
all the time ; since the single thought which is now to 
determine his conduct, might have happened to be the 
first thought that occurred to him on awaking. It only 
happens to occur to him now ; it does not follow from 
what he has been thinking these hours ; at least, he 
cannot prove that some other thought might not just 
as appropriately have come in its place at the end, and 
to make an end, of this long series. It is easy to see 
how feeble that determination is likely to be, which is 
formed on so narrow a ground as the last accidental 
idea that comes into the mind, or on so loose a ground 
as this crude uncombined assemblage of ideas. Indeed 
it is difficult to form a determination at all on such 
slight ground. A man delays, and waits for some more 
satisfactory thought to occur to him ; and perhaps he 
has not waited long, before an idea arises in his mind 
of a quite contrary tendency to the last. As this addi- 
tional idea is not, more than that which preceded it, 
the result of any process of reasoning, nor brings with 
it any arguments, it may be expected to give place soon 
to another, and still another ; and they are all in suc- 
cessio.n of equal authority, that is properly of none. 
If at last an idea occurs to him which seems of consid- 
erable authority, he may here make a stand, and adopt 
his resolution, with firmness, as he thinks, and com- 
mence the execution. But still, if he cannot see 
whence the principle which has determined him derives 
its authority — on what it holds for that authority — his 
resolution is likely to prove treacherous and evanescent 
in any serious trial. A principle so little verified by 
sound reasoning, is not terra firma for a man to trust 
himself upon ; it is only as a slight incrustation on a 
yielding element ; it is like the sand compacted into a 
thin surface on the lake Serbonis, which broke away 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 131 

under the unfortunate army which had begun to ad- 
vance on it, mistaking it for sohd ground. — These re- 
marks may seem to refer only to a single instance of 
deliberation ; but they are equally applicable to all the 
deliberations and undertakings of a man's life ; the 
same connected manner of thinking, which is so ne- 
cessary to give firmness of determination and of con- 
duct in a particular instance, will, if habitual, greatly 
contribute to form a decisive character. 

Not only should thinking be thus reduced, by a 
strong and patient discipline, to a train or process, in 
which all the parts at once depend upon and support 
one another, but also this train should be followed on 
to a fall conclusion. It should be held as a law gen- 
erally in force, that the question must be disposed of 
before it is let alone. The mind may carry on this 
accurate process to some length, and then stop through 
indolence, or start away through levity ; but it can 
never possess that rational confidence in its opinions 
which is requisite to the character in question, till it is 
conscious of acquiring them from an exercise of thought 
continued on to its result. The habit of thinking 
thus completely is indispensable to the general charac- 
ter of decision ; and in any particular instance, it is 
found that short pieces of courses of reasoning, though 
correct as far as they go, are inadequate to make a 
man master of the immediate concern. They are be- 
sides of little value for aid to future thinking ; because 
from being left thus incomplete they are but slightly 
retained by the mind, and soon sink away ; in the 
same manner as the walls of a structure left unfinished 
speedily moulder. 

After these remarks, I should take occasion to ob- 
serve, that a vigorous exercise of thought may some- 
times for a while seem to increase the difficulty of de- 
cision, by discovering a great number of unthought-of 
reasons for a measure and against it, so that the most 
discriminating mind may, during a short space, find 



132 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

itself in the state of the magnetic needle under the 
equator. But no case in the world can really have 
a perfect equality of opposite reasons ; nor will it long 
appear to have it, in the estimate of a clear and well- 
disciplined intellect, which after some time will ascer- 
tain, though the difference is small, which side of the 
question has ten, and which has but nine. At any rate 
this is the mind to come nearest in the approximation. 

Another thing that would powerfully assist toward 
complete decision, both in the particular instance, and 
in the general spirit of the character, is for a m.an to 
place himself in a situation analogous to that in which 
CsBsar placed his soldiers, when he burnt the ships 
which brought them to land. If his judgment is 
really decided, let him commit himself irretrievably^ 
by doing something which shall oblige him to do 
more, which shall lay on him the necessity of doing 
all. If a man resolves as a general intention to be a 
philanthropist, I would say to him. Form some actual 
plan of philanthropy, and begin the execution of it to- 
morrow, (if I may not say to-day^) so explicitly, that 
you cannot relinquish it without becoming degraded 
even in your own estimation. If a man would be a 
hero, let him, if it be possible to find a good cause in 
arms, go presently to the camp. If a man is desirous 
of a travelling adventure through distant countries, 
and deliberately approves both his purpose and his 
scheme, let him actually prepare to set off Let him 
not still dwell, in imagination, on mountains, rivers, 
and temples ; but give directions about his remittances, 
his personal equipments, or the carriage, or the vessel, 
in which he is to go. Ledyard surprised the official 
person who asked him how soon he could be ready to 
set off for the interior of Africa, by replying promptly 
and firmly, " To-morrow." 

Again, it is highly conducive to a manly firmness, 
that the interests in which it is exerted should be of a 
dignified order so as to give the passions an ample 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 133 

scope, and a noble object. The degradation they suf- 
fer in being devoted to mean and trivial pursuits, often 
perceived to be such in spite of every fallacy of the 
imagination, would in general, I should think, also de- 
bilitate their energy, and therefore preclude strength 
of character, to which nothing can be more adverse, 
than to have the fire of the passions damped by the 
mortification of feeling contempt for the object, as often 
as its meanness is betrayed by failure of the delusion 
which invests it. 

And finally, I would repeat that one should think a 
man's own conscientious approbation ' of his conduct 
must be of vast importance to his decision in the outset, 
and his persevering constancy; and I would attribute 
it to defect of memory that a greater proportion of the 
examples, introduced for illustration in this essay, do 
not exhibit goodness in union with the moral and intel- 
leciual power so conspicuous in the quality described. 
Certainly a bright constellation of such examples might 
be displayed ; yet it is the mortifying truth that much 
the greater number of men pre-eminent for decision, 
have been such as could not have their own serious 
approbation, except through an utter perversion of 
judgment or abolition of conscience. And it is melan- 
choly to contemplate beings represented in our imagi- 
nation as of adequate power, (when they possessed 
great external means to give effect to the force of their 
minds,) for the grandest utility, for vindicating each 
good cause which has languished in a world adverse 
to all goodness, and for intimidating the collective vices 
of a nation or an age — to contemplate such beings as 
becoming themselves the mighty exemplars, gic^nts, 
and champions of those vices ; and it is fearful to fol- 
low them in thought, from this region, of which not 
all the powers and difficulties and inhabitants together 
could have subdued their adamantine resolution, to the 
Supreme Tribunal where that resolution must tremble 
and melt away. 

12 



ESSAY III 



ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EPITHET 
ROMANTIC. 



LETTER I. 



A THOUGHTFUL judge of sentiments, books, and men, 
will often find reason to regret thai the language of 
censure is so easy and so undefined. It costs no la- 
bour, and needs no intellect, to pronounce the words, 
foolish, stupid, dull, odious, absurd, ridiculous. The 
weakest or most uncultivated mind may therefore 
gratify its vanity, laziness, and malice, all at once, by 
a prompt application of vague condemnatory words, 
.where a wise and liberal man would not feel himself 
warranted to pronounce without the most deliberate 
consideration, and where such consideration might per- 
haps result in applause. Thus excellent performances, 
in the department of thinking* or of action, might be 
consigned to contempt, if there were no better judges, 
on the authority of those who could not so much as 
understand them. A man who wishes some decency 
and sense to prevail in the circulation of opinions, will 
do well, when he hears these decisions of ignorant ar- 
rogance, to call for a precise explication of the manner 
in which the terms of the verdict apply to the subject. 

There is a competent number of words for this use 
of cheap censure ; but though a man doubts not he is 
giving a tolerable proof of sagacitj' in the confident 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 135 

readiness to condemn, even with this impotence of lan- 
guage, he may however have an irksome conscious- 
ness that there is wanting to him a certain dexterity 
of biting expression that would do more mischief than 
the words dull, stupid, and ridiculous, which he is re- 
peating many times to compensate for the incapacity 
of hitting off the right thing at once. These vague 
epithets describe nothing, discriminate nothing ; they 
express no species, are as applicable to ten thousand 
things as to this one, and he has before employed them 
on a numberless diversity of subjects. He has a fret- 
ted feeling of this their inefficiency ; and can perceive 
that censure or contempt has the smartest effect, when 
its expressions have a special cast which fits them more 
peculiarly to the present subject than to another ; and 
he is therefore secretly dissatisfied in uttering the ex- 
pressions which say " about it and about it," but do 
not say the thing itself; which showing his good will 
betray his deficient power. He wants words and 
phrases which would make the edge of his clumsy 
meaning fall just where it ought. Yes, he Avants 
words ; for his meaning is sharp, he knows, if only the 
words would come. 

Discriminative censure must be conveyed, either by 
a marked expression of thought in a sentence, or by an 
epithet or other term so specifically appropriate, that 
the single word is sufficient to fix the condemnation by 
the mere precision with which it describes. But as the 
censurer perhaps cannot succeed in either of these ways, 
he is willing to seek some other resource. And he may 
often find it in cant terms, which have a more spite- 
ful force, and seem to have more particularity of mean- 
ing, than plain common words, while yet needing no 
shrewdness for their application. Each of these is'sup- 
posed to denominate some one class or character of 
scorned or reprobated things, but so little defines it, 
that dull malice may venture to assign to the class any 
thing which it would desire to throw under the odium 



136 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

of the denomination. Such words serve for a mode of 
collective execution, somewhat like the vessels which, 
in a season of outrage in a neighbouring country-j re- 
ceived a promiscuous crowd of reputed criminals, of 
unexamined and dubious similarity, and were then 
sunk in the flood. You cannot wonder that such 
compendious words of decision, which can give qiiick 
vent to crude impatient censure, emit plenty of antipa- 
thy in a few syllables, and- save the condemner the 
difficulty of telling exactly what he wants to mean, 
should have had an extensive circulation. 

Puritan was, doubtless, welcomed as a term most 
luckily invented or revived, when it began to be appli- 
ed in contempt to a class of men of whom the world 
was not worthy. Its odd peculiarity gave it almost 
such an advantage as that of a proper name among the 
lumber of common words by which they were described 
and reviled : while yet it meant any thing, every thing, 
which the vain world disliked in the devout and con- 
scientious character. To the more sluggish it saved, 
and to the more loquacious it relieved, the labour of 
endlessly repeating "demure rogues," " sanctimonious 
pretenders," " formal hypocrites." 

The abusive faculty of this word has long been ex- 
tinct, and left it to become a grave and almost vener- 
able term in history ; but some word of a similar cast 
^^as indispensably necessary to the vulgar of both kinds. 
The vain and malignant spirit which had decried the 
elevated piety of the Puritans, sought about (as Milton 
describes the wicked one in Paradise) for some con- 
venient form in which it might again come forth to hiss 
at zealous Christianity ; and in another lucky moment 
fell on the term Methodist. If there is no sense in the 
word, as now applied, there seems, however, to be 
great deal of aptitude and execution. It has the advan 
tage of being comprehensive as a general denomination 
and yet opprobrious as a special badge, for every thing 
that ignorance and folly may mistake for fanaticism, 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 137 

or that malice may wilfully assign to it. Whenever a 
formalist feels it his duty to sneer at those opera- 
tions of religion on the passions, by which he has never 
been disturbed, he has only to call them methodistical ; 
and though the word be both so trite and so vague, he 
feels as if he had uttered a good pungent thing. There 
is a satiric smartness in the word, though there be none 
in the man. In default of keen faculty in the mind, it 
is delightful thus to find something that will do as well, 
ready bottled up in odd terms. It is not less convenient 
to a profligate, or a coxcomb, whose propriety of char- 
acter is to be supported by laughing indiscriminately 
at religion in every form ; the one, to evince that his 
courage is not sapped by conscience, the other, to make 
the best advantage of his instinct of catching at impiety 
as a compensative substitute for sense. The word 
Methodism so readily sets aside all rehgion as super- 
stitious folly, that they pronounce it with an air as' if ' 
no more needed to be said. Such terms have a pleas- 
ant facility of throwing away the matter in question to 
scorn, without any trouble of making a definite intelli- 
gible charge of extravagance or delusion, and attempt- 
ing to prove it. 

In politics. Jacobinism has, of late years, been the 
brand by which all sentiments referring to the principles 
of liberty, in a way to censure the measures of the 
ascendent party in the State, have been sentenced to 
execration. What a quantity of noisy zeal would have 
been quashed in dead silence, if it had been possible to 
enforce the substitution of statements and definitions 
for this vulgar, senseless, but most efficacious term of 
reproach ! What a number of persons have vented the 
superabundance of their loyalty, or their rancour, by 
means of this and two or three similar words, who, if by 
some sudden lapse of memory they had lost these two 
or three words and a few names of persons, would have 
looked round with an idiotic vacancy, totally at a loss 
what was the subject of their anger or their approbation. 
12* 



138 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

One may here catch a glimpse of the policy of men of 
a superior class, in employing these terms as much as 
the vulgar, in order to keep them in active currency. 
If a rude populace, whose understandings they despise, 
and do not wish to improve, could not be excited and 
kept up to loyal animosity, but by means of a clear 
comprehension of what they were to oppose, and of the 
reasons why, a political party would have but feeble 
hold on popular zeal, and might vociferate, and intrigue, 
and fret itself to nothing. But if a single word, devised 
in hatred and defamation of political liberty, can be 
made the symbol of all that is absurd and execrable, 
so that the very sound of it shall irritate the passions 
of this ignorant and scorned multitude, as dogs have 
been taught to bark at the name of a neighbouring 
tyrant, it is a commodious expedient for rendering these 
passions available and subservient to the interests of 
those who despise, while they cajole, their duped aux- 
iliaries. The popular passions are the imps and de- 
mons of the political conjuror, and he can raise them, 
as other conjurors affect to do theirs, by terms of gib- 
berish.* 

The epithet romantic has obviously no similarity to 
these words in its coinage, but it is considerably like 
them in the mode and effect of its application. For 
having partly quitted the rank of plain epithets, it has 
become a convenient exploding word, of more special 
deriding significance than the other words of its order, 
such as wild, extravagant, visionary. It is a standard 
expression of contemptuous despatch, which you have 
often heard pronounced with a very self-complacent 
air, that said, " How much wiser I am than some 

* It is curious that, within no long time after this was first 
printed, the terms jacobin and jacobinism became completely worn 
out and obsolete. It is not worth a guess how long the term radi- 
cal, to which the duty of the defunct ones was transferred, may 
continue of any service against tlie doctrines and persons of refor- 
mists. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 139 

people," by the indolent and inanimate on what they 
would not acknowledge practicable, by the apes of 
prudence on what they accounted foolishly adventurous, 
and by the slaves of custom on what startled them as 
singular. The class of absurdities which it denominates 
is left so undefined, that all the views and sentiments 
which a narrow cold mind could not like or understand 
in an ample and fervid one, might be referred thither ; 
and yet the word seems, or assumes, to discriminate their 
character so conclusively as to put them out of argu- 
ment. With this cast of sapience and vacancy of sense, 
it is allowed to depreciate without being accountable ; 
it has the license of a parrot, to call names without be- 
ing taxed with insolence. And when any sentiments 
are decisively stigmatized with this denomination, it 
would require considerable courage to attempt their 
rescue and defence ; since the imputation Vv^hich the epi- 
thet fixes on them will pass upon the advocate ; and he 
may expect to be himself enrolled among the heroes of 
whom Don Cluixote is from time immemorial the com- 
mander-in-chief At least he may be assigned to that 
class which occupies a dubious frontier space between 
the rational and the insane. 

If, however, the suggestions and sketches which I 
had endeavoured to exhibit as interesting and practi- 
cable, were attempted to be turned into vanity and 
" thin air" by the enunciation of this epithet, I would 
say. Pray now what do you mean by romantic ? Have 
you, as you pronounce it, any precise conception in 
your mind, which you can give in some other words, 
and then distinctly fix the charge ? Or is this a word, 
which because it is often used in some such way as 
you now use it, ma}?" be left to tell its own meaning 
better than the speaker knows how to explain it? Or 
perhaps you mean, that the notions which I am ex- 
pressing recall to your mind, as kindred ideas, the fan- 
tastic images of Romance ; and that you cannot help 
thinking of enchanted castles, encounters with giants, 



140 ON THE APPLICATON OF 

solemn exorcisms, fortunate surprises, knights and wiz- 
ards. You cannot exactly distinguish what the ab- 
surdity in my notions is, but you fancy what it is like. 
You therefore condemn it, not by defining its nature 
and exposing its irrationality, but by applying an epithet 
which arbitrarily assigns it to a class of things of which 
the absurdity stands notorious and unquestioned : for 
evidently the epithet should signify a resemblance to 
what is the prominent folly in the works of romance. 
Well then, take advantage of this resemblance, to 
bring your censure into something of a definite form. 
Delineate precisely the chief features of the absurdity 
of the works of romance, and then show how the same 
characteristics are flagrant on my notions or schemes. 
I will then renounce at once all my visionary follies, 
and be henceforward at least a very sober, if 1 cannot 
be a very rational man. 

The great general characteristic of those works has 
been the ascendency of imagination over judg^nent. 
And the description is correct as applied to the books, 
however well endowed with intellect the authors of 
them might be. If they chose, for their own and 
others' amusement, to dismiss a sound judgment awhile 
from its office, to stimulate their imagination to the 
wildest extravagances, and to depicture the fantastic 
career in writing, the book might be partly the same 
thing as if produced by a mind in which sound judg- 
ment had no place ; it would exhibit imagination ac- 
tually ascendent by the writer's voluntary indulgence, 
though not mcessarily so by the constitution of his 
mind. It was a different case, if a writer kept his 
judgment active amidst these very extravagances, with 
the intention of shaping and directing them to some 
particular end, of satire or sober truth. But however, 
the romances of the ages of chivalry and the preceding 
times were composed under neither of these intellectual 
conditions. They were not the productions either of 
men who, possessing a sound judgment, chose formally 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 141 

to suspend its exercise, in order to riot awhile in scenes 
of extravagant fanc}^, only keeping that judgment so 
far awake as to retain a continual consciousness in what 
degree they were extravagant; or of men designing to 
give effect to truth or malice under the disguise of a 
fantastic exhibition. It is evident that the authors 
were under the real ascendency of imagination ; so 
that, though they must at times have been conscious of 
committing great excesses, yet they were on the whole 
wonderfully little sensible of the enormous extrava- 
gance of their fictions. They could drive on their ca- 
reer through monstrous absurdities of description and 
nan:ation, without, apparently, any check from a sense 
of inconsistency, improbability, or impossibility ; and 
with an air as if they really reckoned on being taken 
for the veritable describers of something that could ex- 
ist or happen within the mundane system. And the 
general state of intellect of the age in which they 
lived seems to have been well fitted to allow them the 
utmost license. The irrationality of the romancers, 
and of the age, provoked the observing and powerful 
mind of Cervantes to expose it by means of a parallel 
and still more extravagant representation of the preva- 
lence of imagination over reason, drawn in a ludicrous 
form, by which he rendered the folly palpable even to 
the sense of that age. From that time the delirium 
abated ; the works which inspirited its ravings have 
been blown away beyond the knowledge and curiosity 
of any but bibliomaniacs ; and the fabrication of such 
is gone among the lost branches of manufacturing art. 
Yet romance was in some form to be retained, as in- 
dispensable to the craving of the human mind for some- 
thing more vivid, more elated, more wonderful, than 
the plain realities of life ; as a kind of mental balloon, 
for mounting into the air from the ground of ordinary 
experience. To afford this extra-rational kind of lux- 
ury, it was requisite that the fictions should still par- 
take, in a limited degree, of the quality of the earlier ro- 



142 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

mance. The writers were not to be the dupes of wild 
fancy ; they were not to feign marvels in such a man- 
ner as if they knew no better ; they were not wholly 
to lose sight of the actual system of things, but to keep 
within some measures of relation and proportion to it ; 
and yet they were required to disregard the strict laws 
of verisimilitude in shaping their inventions, and to 
magnify and diversify them with an indulgence of fancy 
very considerably beyond the bounds of probability. 
Without this their fictions would have lost what was 
regarded as the essential quality of romance. 

If, therefore, the epithet Romantic, as now employed 
for description and censure of character, sentiments, 
and schemes, is to be understood as expressive of the 
quality which is characteristic of that class of fictionSj 
it imputes, in substance, a great excess of imagination 
in proportion to judgment ; and it imputes, in particu- 
lars, such errors as naturally result from that excess. — 
It may be worth while to look for some of the practi- 
cal exemplifications of this unfortunate disproportion 
between these two powers of the mind. 

It should first be noted that a defective judgment is 
not necessarily accompanied by any thing in the least 
romantic in disposition, since the imagination may be 
as inert as the judgment is weak ; and this double and 
equal deficiency produces mere dulness. But it is ob- 
vious that a weak judgment may be associated with an 
active strength of that faculty which is of such lively 
power even in childhood, in dreams, and in the state of 
insanity. 

Again, there may be an intellect not positively feeble 
(supposing it estimated separately from the other power), 
yet practically reduced to debility by a disproportionate 
imagination, which continually invades its sphere, and 
takes every thing out of its hands. And then the case 
is made worse by the unfortunate circumstance, that 
the exercise of the faculty which should be repressed, 
is incomparably more easy and delightful, than of that 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC, 143 

which should be promoted. Indeed the term exercise 
is hardly applicable to the activity of a faculty which 
can be active without effort, which is so far from needing 
to be stimulated to its works of magic, that it often 
scorns the most serious injunctions to forbear. It is 
not exercise, but indulgence; and even minds possessing 
much of the power of understanding, may be little 
disposed to undergo the labour of it, when amidst the 
ease of the deepest indolence they can revel in the 
activity of a more animating employment. Imagination 
may be indulged till it usurp an entire ascendency over 
the mind, and then every subject presented to that 
mind will be taken under the action of imagination, 
instead of understanding ; imagination will throw its 
colours where the intellectual faculty ought to draw its 
lines ; will accumulate metaphors where reason ought 
to deduce arguments ; images will take the place of 
thoughts, and scenes of disquisitions. The whole mind 
may become at length something like a hemisphere 
of cloud-scenery, filled with an ever-moving train of 
changing melting forms, of every colour, mingled with 
rainbows, meteors, and an occasional gleam of pure sun- 
light, all vanishing away, the mental like this natural 
imagery, when its hour is up, without leaving any thing 
behind but the wish to recover the vision. And yet, 
the while, this series of visions may be mistaken for 
operations of thought, and each cloudy image be adr 
mitted in the place of a proposition or a reason ; or it 
may even be mistaken for something sublimer than 
thinking. The influence of this habit of dwelling on 
the beautiful fallacious forms of imagination, will ac- 
company the mind into the most serious speculations, 
or rather musings, on the real world, and what is to be 
done in it and expected ; as the image from looking at 
any dazzling object still appears before the eye wherever 
it turns. The vulgar materials that constitute the 
actual economy of the world, will rise up to sight in 
fictitious forms, which the mind cannot disenchant into 



144 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

plain reality ; which indeed it may hardly suspect of 
being illusory ; and would not be very desirous to 
reduce to the proof if it did. For such a mind is not 
disposed to examine, with any severity of inspection, 
the real condition of things. It is content with ig- 
norance, because environed with something far more 
delicious than such knowledge, in the paradise which 
imagination creates. In that paradise it walks delighted, 
till some imperious circumstance of real life call it 
thence, and gladly escapes thither again as soon as the 
cause of the avocation can be got rid of There, every 
thing is beautiful and noble as could be desired to form 
the residence of angels. If a tenth part of the felicities 
that have been enjoyed, the great actions that have 
been performed, the beneficent institutions that have 
been established, and the beautiful objects that have 
been seen, in that happy region, could have been im- 
ported into this terrestrial place — what a delightful 
thing, my dear friend, it would have been each morning 
to awake and look on such a world once more. 

It is not strange that a faculty, of which the exercise 
is so easy and bewitching, and the scope infinite, should 
obtain a predominance over judgment, especially in 
young persons, and in such as may have been brought 
up, like Rasselas and his companions, in great seclusion 
from the sight and experience of the world. Indeed, 
a considerable vigour of imagination, though it be at 
the expense of a frequent predominance over juvenile 
understanding, seems necessary, in early life, to cause 
a -generous expansion of the passions, by giving the 
most lively aspect to the objects which must attract 
them in order to draw forth into activity the faculties 
of our nature. It may also contribute to prepare the 
mind for the exercise of that faith which converses 
with things unseen, but converses with them through 
the medium of those ideal forms in which imagination 
presents them, and in which only a strong imagination 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 145 

can present them impressively.* And I should deem 
it the indication of a character not destined to excel in 
the liberal, the energetic, or the devout qualities, if I 
observed in the youthful age a close confinement of 
thought to bare truth and minute accuracy, with an 
entire aversion to the splendours, amplifications, and 
excursions of fancy. The opinion is warranted by 
instances of persons so distinguished in youth, who 
have become subsequently very intelligent indeed, in 
a certain way, but dry, cold, precise, devoted to detail, 
and incapable of being carried away one moment by 
any inspiration of the beautiful or the sublime. They 
seem to have only the bare intellectual mechanism of 
the human mind, without the addition of what is to 
give it life and sentiment. They give one an impression 
analogous to that of the leafless trees observed in 
winter, admirable for the distinct exhibition of their 
branches and minute ramifications so clearly defined 
on the sky, but destitute of all the green soft luxury 
of foliage which is requisite to make a perfect tree* 
And the affections which may exist in such minds seem 
to have a bleak abode, somewhat like those bare deserted 
nests which you have often seen in such trees. 

If, indeed, the signs of this exclusive understanding 
indicated also such an extraordinary vigour of the 
faculty, as to promise a very great mathematician or 
metaphj'-sician, one would perhaps be content to forego 
some of the properties which form a complete mind, 
for the sake of this pre-eminence of one of its endow- 
ments ; even though the person were to be so defective 

* The Divine Being is the only one of these objects which a 
Christian would wish it possible to contemplate without the aid of 
imagination ; and every reflective man has felt how difficult it is to 
apprehend even this Object without the intervention of an image. 
In thinking of the transactions and personages of history , the final 
events of time foretold by prophecy, the state of good men in another 
world, the superior ranks of intelligent agents, &c. he has often had 
to wish his imagination much more vivid. 
13 



146 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

in sentiment and fancy, that, as the story goes of an 
eminent mathematician, he could read through a most 
animated and splendid epic poem, and on being asked 
what he thought of it, gravely reply, " What does it 
prove?" But the want of imagination is never an 
evidence, and perhaps but rarely a concomitant, of 
superior understanding. 

Imagination may be allowed the ascendency in early 
youth ; the case should be reversed in mature life ; 
and if it is not, a man may consider his mind either as 
not the most happily constructed, or as unwisely disci- 
plined. The latter indeed is probably true in every 
such instance. 



LETTER II. 

The ascendency of^ imagination operates in various 
modes ; I will endeavour to distinguish those which 
may justly be called romantic. 

The extravagance of imagination in romance has 
very much consisted in the display of a destiny and 
course of life totally unlike the common condition of 
mankind. And you may have observed in living indi- 
viduals, that one of the effects sometimes produced by 
the predominance of this faculty is, a persuasion in a 
person's own mind that he is born to some peculiar and 
extraordinary destiny, while yet there are no extraordi- 
nary indications in the person or his circumstances. 
There was something rational in the early presenti- 
ment which some distinguished men have entertained 
of their future career. When a celebrated general of 
the present times exclaimed, after performing the com- 
mon military exercise, as one of a company of juvenile 
volunteers, " I shall be a commander-in-chief,"* a sa- 
* Related of Moreau. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 14f 

gacious observer of the signs of talents yet but par- 
tially developed, might have thought it indeed a rather 
sanguine but probably not a quite absurd anticipation. 
An elder and intelligent associate of Milton's youth 
might without much difficulty have believed himself 
listening to an oracle, when a spirit which was sha- 
ping in such gigantic proportions avowed to him a 
confidence, of being destined to produce a work which 
should distinguish the nation and the age. The open- 
ing of uncommon faculties may be sometimes inspirited 
by such anticipations ; which the young genius may 
be allowed to express, perhaps as a stimulus encour- 
aged to indulge. But in most instances these magnifi- 
cent presumptions form, in the observer's eye, a ludi- 
crous contrast with the situation and apparent abilities 
of the person who entertains them. And in the event, 
how few such anticipations have been proved the gen- 
uine promptings of an extraordinary mind. 

The visionary presumption of a peculiar destiny is 
entertained in more forms than that which implies a 
confidence of possessing uncommon talent. It is often 
the flattering self-assurance simply of a life of singular 
felicity. The captive of fancy fondly imagines his 
prospect of life as a delicious vale, where from each 
side every stream of pleasure is to flow down to his 
feet ; and while it cannot but be seen that innumerable 
evils do harass other human beings, some mighty spell 
is to protect him against them all. He takes no de- 
liberate account of what is inevitable in the lot of 
humanity, of the sober probabilities of his own situa- 
tion, or of any principles in the constitution of his 
mind which are perhaps very exactly calculated to 
frustrate the acticipation and the scheme of happiness. 

If this excessive imagination is combined with ten- 
dencies to affection, it makes a person sentimentally 
romantic. With a great, and what might, in a mind 
of finer elements, be a just contempt of the ordinary 
rate of attachments, both in friendship and love, he 



148 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

indulges a most assured confidence that his peculiar 
lot is to realize all the wonders of generous, virtuous, 
noble, unalienable friendship, or of enraptured, unin- 
terrupted, and unextinguishable love, that the inebria- 
tion of fiction and poetry ever sung ; while perhaps a 
shrewd indifferent observer can descry nothing in the 
horoscope, or the character, or the actual circumstances 
of the man, or in the qualities of the human creatures 
that he adores, or in the nature of his devotion, to 
promise an elevation or permanence of felicity beyond 
the destiny of common mortals. 

If a passion for variety and novelty accompanies 
this extravagant imagination, it will exclude from its 
bold sketches of future life every thing like confined 
regularity, and common plodding occupations. It will 
suggest that / was born ibr an adventurer, whose story 
will one day be a wonder of the world. Perhaps I am 
to be an universal traveller ; and there is not on the 
globe a grand city, or ruin, or volcano, or cataract, but 
I must see it. Debility of constitution, deficiency of 
means, innumerable perils, unknown languages, op- 
pressive toils, extinguished curiosity, worn out fortitude, 
failing health, and the shortness of life, are very possi- 
bly all left out of the account. 

If there is in the disposition a love of what is called 
glory, and an idolatry of those capacious and intrepid 
spirits one of which has often, in a portentous crisis, 
decided, by an admirable series of exertions, or by one 
grand exploit of intelligence and valour, the destiny of 
armies and of empires, a predominant imagination 
may be led to revel amidst the splendours of military 
achievement, and to flatter the man that he too is to be 
a hero, a great commander. 

When a mind under this influence recurs to prece- 
dents as a foundation and a warrant of its expectations, 
they are never the usual, but always the extraordinary 
examples, that are contemplated. An observer of the 
ordinary instances of friendship is perhaps heard to 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 149 

assert that the sentiment is sufficiently _ languid in 
general to admit of an almost unqualified self-interest, 
of absence without pain, and of ultimate indifference. 
Well, so let it be ; Damon and Pythias were friends of 
a different order, and our friendship is to be like theirs. 
Or if the subject of musing and hope is the union in 
which love commonly results, it may be true and ob- 
vious enough that the generality of instances would 
not seem to tell of more than a mediocrity of happiness 
in this relation ; but a visionary person does not live 
within the same world with these examples. The few 
instances which have been recorded of tender and 
never-dying enthusiasm, together with the numerous 
ones which romance and poetry have created, form the 
class to which he belongs, and from whose enchant- 
ing history, excepting their misfortunes, he reasons 
to his own future experience. So too the man, whose 
fancy anticipates political or martial distinction, allows 
his thoughts to revert continually to those names which 
a rare conjunction of talents and circumstances has 
elevated into fame ; forgetting that many thousands of 
men of great ability have died in at least comparative 
obscurity, for want of situations in which to display 
themselves ; and never suspecting it possible that his 
own abilities are not competent to any thing great, if 
some extraordinary event were just now to place him 
in the most opportune concurrence of circumstances. 
That there has been one very signal man to a millionj 
more avails to the presumption that he shall be a sig- 
nal man, than there having been a miUion to one sig- 
nal man, infers a probability of his remaining one of 
the multitude. 

You will generally observe, that persons thus self- 
appointed, of either sex, to be exceptions to the usual 
lot ofhumanity, endeavour at a kind of consistency of 
character, by a great aversion to the common modes 
of action and language, and a habitual affectation of 
something extraordinary. They will perhaps disdain 
3* 



150 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

regular hours, punctuality to engagements, usual dress- 
es, a homely diction, and common forms of transacting 
business ; this you are to regard as the impulse of a 
spirit whose high vocation authorizes it to renounce all 
signs of relation to vulgar minds. 

The epithet romantic then may be justly applied to 
those presumptions (if entertained after the childish or 
very youthful age) of a peculiarly happy or important 
destiny in life, which are not clearly founded on certain 
palpable distinctions of character or situation, or which 
greatly exceed the sober prognostics afforded by those 
distinctions. — It should be observed here that wishes 
merely do not constitute a character romantic. A per* 
son may sometimes let his mind wander into vain wish- 
es for all the fine things on earth, and yet be too sober 
to expect any of them. In this case however he will 
often check and reproach himself for the folly of indul- 
ging in such mental dissoluteness. 

The absurdity of such anticipations consists simply 
in the improbability of their being realized, and not in 
their objects being uncongenial with the human mind ; 
but another effect of the predominance of imagination 
may be a disposition to form schemes or indulge ex- 
pectations essentially incongruous with the nature of 
man- Perhaps however you will say. What is that na- 
ture ? Is it not a mere passive thing, variable almost 
to infinity, according to climate, to institutions, and to 
the different ages of time ? Even taking it in a civil- 
ized state, what relation is there between such a form 
of human nature as that displayed at Sparta, and, for 
instance, the modern society denominated duakers, or 
the Moravian Fraternity ? And how can we ascertain 
what is congenial with it or not, unless itself were first 
ascertained 1 Allow me to say, that I speak of human 
nature in its most general principles only, as social, self- 
interested, inclined to the wrong, slow to improve, pass-, 
ing through several states of capacity and feeling in 
the successive periods of life, and the few other such 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 151 

permanent distinctions. Any of these distinctions may 
vanish from the sight of a visionary mind, while form- 
ing, for itself, or for others, such schemes as could have 
sprung only from an imagination become wayward 
through its uncontrolled power, and its victory over so- 
ber reason. I remember, for example, a person, very 
young I confess, who was so enchanted with the stories 
of Gregory Lopez, and one or two more pious hermits, 
as almost to form the resolution to betake himself to 
some wilderness and live as Gregory did. At any time, 
the very word hermit was enough to transport him, like 
the witch's broodstick, to the solitary hut, which was 
delightfully surrounded by shady solemn groves, mossy 
rocks, crystal streams, and gardens of radishes. While 
this fancy lasted, he forgot the most obvious of all 
facts, that man is not made for habitual solitude, nor 
can endure it without misery, except when transform- 
ed into a genuine superstitious ascetic ; — questionable 
whether even then.* 

Contrary to human nature, is the proper description 
of those theories of education, and those flatteries of 
parental hope, which presume that young people in 
general maybe matured to eminent wisdom, and adorn- 
ed with the universality of noble attainments, by the 
period at which in fact the intellectual faculty is but 
beginning to operate with any thing like clearness and 
sustained force. Becuase some individuals, remarkable 
exceptions to the natural character of youth, have in 
their very childhood advanced beyond the youthful 
giddiness and debility of reason, and have displayed, at 
the age perhaps of twenty, a wonderful assemblage of 
all the strong and all the graceful endowments, it there- 

* Lopez indeed was often visited by pious persons who sought 
his instructions ; this was a great modification of the loneliness, 
and of the trial involved in enduring it ; but my hermit was fond 
of the idea of an uninhabited island, or of a wilderness so deep that 
these good people would not have been able to come at him, with- 
out a more formidable pilgrimage than was ever yet made for the 
sake of obtaining instruction. 



152 ON THE APPLICATION OP 

fore only needs a proper system of education to make 
other young- people, (at least those of my family, the 
parent thinks,) be no longer what nature has always 
made youth to be. Let this be adopted, and we shall 
see multitudes at that age possessing the judgment of 
sages, or the diversified acquirements and graces of 
all-accomplished gentlemen and ladies. And what, 
pray, are the beings which are to become, by the dis- 
cipline of ten or a dozen years, such finished examples 
of various excellence? Not, surely, these boys here, 
that love nothing so much as tops, marbles and petty 
mischief — and those girls, that have yet attained but 
few ideas beyond the dressing of dolls ? Yes, even 
these ! 

The same charge of being unadapted to man, falls 
on the speculations of those philosophers and philan- 
thropists, who have eloquently displayed the happiness, 
and asserted the practicability, of something near an 
equality of property and modes of life throughout socie- 
ty. Those who really anticipated or projected the prac- 
tical trial of the system, must have forgotten on what 
planet those apartments were built, or those arbours 
were growing, in which they were favoured with such 
visions. For in these visions they beheld the ambition 
of one part of the inhabitants, the craft or audacity of an- 
other, the avarice of another, the stupidity or indolence 
of another, and the selfishness of almost all, as mere 
adventitious faults, super-induced on the character of 
the species, and instantly flying ofi' at the approach of 
better institutions, which shall prove, to the confusion 
of all the calumniators of human nature, that nothing 
is so congenial to it as industry, moderation, and disin- 
terestedness. It is at the same time but just to acknow- 
ledge, that many of them have admitted the necessity 
of such a grand transformation as to make man another 
being previously to the adoption of the system. This 
is all very well : when the proper race of men shall 
come from Utopia, the system and polity may very 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 153 

properly come along with them ; or these sketches of 
it, prepared for them by us, may be carefully preserved 
here, in volumes more precious than those of the Sib- 
yls, against their arrival. Till then, the sober observers 
of the human character will read these beautiful theo- 
ries as romances, offering the fairest game for sarcasm 
in their splenetic hoars when they are disgusted with 
human nature, and infusing melancholy in their benev- 
olent ones, when they look on it with a commiserating 
and almost desponding sentiment. 

The character of the age of chivalry presents itself 
conspicuously among this class of illustrations. One 
of its most prominent distinctions was, an immense in- 
congruity with the simplest principles of human nature. 
For instance, in the concern of love : a generous young 
man became attached to an interesting young woman 
—interesting as he believed, from having once seen 
her ; for probably he never heard her speak. His 
heart would naturally prompt him to seek access to the 
object whose society, it told him, would make him 
happy; and if in a great measure debarred from that 
society, he would surrender himself to the melting 
mood of the passion, in the musings of pensive retire- 
ment. But this was not the way. He must exile 
himself for successive years from her society and vi- 
cinity, and every soft indulgence of feeling, and rush 
boldly into all sorts of hardships and perils, deeming 
no misfortune so great as not to find constant occasions 
of hazarding his life among the roughest foes, or, if he 
could find or fancy them, the strangest monsters ; and 
all this, not as the alleviation of despair, but as the court- 
ship of hope. And when he was at length betrayed 
to flatter himself that such a probation, through every 
kind of patience and danger, might entitle him to 
throw his trophies and himself at her imperial feet, it 
was very possible she might be affronted at his having 
presumed to be still alive. It is unnecessary to refer 
to the other parts of the institution of chivalry, the 



154 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

whole system of which would seem more adapted to 
any race of beings exhibited in the Arabian Nights, or 
to any still wilder creation of fancy, than to a commu- 
nity of creatures appointed to live by cultivating the 
soil, anxious to avoid pain and trouble, seeking the re- 
ciprocation of affection on the easiest terms, and near- 
est to happiness in regular pursuits and quiet domestic 
life. 

One cannot help reflecting here, how amazingly ac- 
commodating this human nature has been to all insti- 
tutions but wise and good ones ; insomuch that an or- 
der of life and manners conceived in the wildest devia- 
tion from all plain sense and native instinct, could be 
practically adopted, by some of those who had rank 
and courage enough, and adored and envied by the 
rest of mankind. Still, the genuine tendencies of na- 
ture have survived the strange but transient sophistica- 
tions of time, and remain the same after the jjge of 
chivalry is gone far toward that oblivion, to which you 
will not fail to wish that many other institutions might 
speedily follow it. Forgive the prolixity of these illus- 
trations intended to show, that schemes and specula- 
tions respecting the interests either of an individual or 
of society, which are inconsistent with the natural con- 
stitution of man, may, except where it should be rea- 
sonable to expect some supernatural intervention, be 
denominated romantic. 

The tendency to this species of romance, may be 
caused, or very greatly promoted, by an exclusive taste 
for what is grand^ a disease with which some few 
minds are affected. They have no pleasure in con- 
templating the system of things as the Creator has or- 
dered it, a combination of great and little, in which the 
great is much more dependent on the little, than the 
little on the great. They cut out the grand objects, to 
dispose them into a world of their own. All the 
images in their intellectual scene must be colossal and 
mountainous. They are constantly seeking what is 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 155 

animated into heroics, what is expanded into immensity, 
what is elevated above the stars. But for great em- 
pires, great battles, great enterprises, great convulsions, 
great geniuses, great temples, great rivers, there would 
be nothing worth naming in this part of the creation,* 
All that belongs to connexion, gradation, harmony, 
regularity, and utility, is thrown out of sight behind 
these forms of vastness. The influenee of this exclu- 
sive taste will reach into the system of projects and ex- 
pectations. The man will wish to summon the world 
to throw aside its tame accustomed pursuits, and adopt 
at once more magnificent views and objects, and will 
be indignant at mankind that they cannot or will not 
be sublime. Impatient of little mean and slow pro- 
cesses, he will wish for violent transitions and entirely 
new institutions. He will perhaps determine to set 
men the example of performing something great, in 
some ill-judged sanguine project in which he will fail ; 
and, after being ridiculed by society, both for the 
scheme and its catastrophe, may probably abandon all 
the activities of life, and become a misanthrope the 
rest of his days. At any rate, he will disdain all la- 
bour to perform well in little or moderate things, when 
fate has frowned on his higher ambition. 



LETTER III. 

One of the most obvious distinctions of the works 
of romance is, an utter violation of all the relations 
between ends and means. Sometimes such ends are 
proposed as seem quite dissevered from means, in- 

* Just as, to employ a humble comparison, a votary of fashion, 
after visiting a crowded public place w^hich happened at that time 
not to be graced by the presence of many people of consequence, 
tells you, with an aifected tone, •" There was not a creature there." 



156 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

asmuch as there are scarcely any supposable means on 
earth to accomplish them : but no matter ; if we can- 
not ride we must swim, if we cannot swim we must 
fly ; the object is effected by a mere poetical omnipo- 
tence that wills it. And very often practicable objects 
are attained by means the most fantastic, improbable, or 
inadequate ; so that there is scarcely any resemblance 
between the method in which they are accomplished 
by the dexterity of fiction, and that which we are con- 
demned to follow if we will attempt the same things in 
the actual economy of the world. Now, Avhen you 
see this absurdity of imagination prevailing in the cal- 
culations of real life, you may justly apply the epithet 
— romantic. 

Indeed a strong and habitually indulged imagination 
may be absorbed in the end, if it be not a concern of 
absolute immediate urgency, as for a while quite to 
forget the process of attainment. That power has in- 
cantations to dissolve the rigid laws of time and distance, 
and place a man in something so like the presence of 
his object as to create the temporary hallucination of 
an ideal possession ; and it is hard, when occupying 
the verge of Paradise, to be flung far back in order to 
find or make a path to it, with the slow and toilsome 
steps of reality. In the luxury of promising himself 
that what he wishes will by some means take place at 
some time, he forgets that he is advancing no nearer to 
it — except on the wise and patient calculation that he 
must, by the simple fact of growing older, be coming 
somewhat nearer to every event that is yet to happen to 
him. He is like a traveller, who, amidst his indolent 
musings in some soft bower, where he has sat down to 
be shaded a little while from the rays of noon, falls 
asleep, and dreams he is in the midst of all the endear- 
ments of home, insensible that there are many hills 
and dales for him yet to traverse. But the traveller 
will awake : so too will our other dreamer ; and if he 
has the smallest capacity of just reflection he will re- 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 157 

gret to have \vasted in reveries the time which ought 
to have been devoted to practical exertions. 

But even though reminded of the necessity of inter- 
vening means, the man of imagination will often be 
tempted to violate their relation with ends, by permit- 
ting himself to dwell on those happy casualties^ which 
the prolific sorcery of his mind will promptly figure to 
him as the very things, if they would but occur, to ac- 
complish his wishes at once, without the toil of a sober 
process. If they would occur — and things as strange 
might and do happen : he reads in the newspapers tha\ 
an estate of ten thousand per annum was lately ad- 
judged to a man who was working on the road. He 
has even heard of people dreaming that in such a 
place something valuable was concealed ; and that, on 
searching or digging that place, they found an old earth- 
en pot, full of gold and silver pieces of the times of 
good King Charles the Martyr. Mr. B. was travelling 
by the mail-coach, in which he met with a most inter- 
esting young lady whom he had never seen before ; 
they were mutually delighted, and were married in a 
few weeks. Mr. C, a man of great merit in obscurity, 
was walking across a field when Lord D., in chase of a 
fox, leaped over the hedge and fell off his horse into a 
ditch. Mr. C. with the utmost alacrity and kind so- 
licitude helped his lordship out of the ditch, and recov- 
ered for him his escaped horse. The consequence was 
inevitable ; his lordship, superior to the pride of being 
mortified to have been seen in a condition so unlucky 
for giving the impression of nobility, commenced a 
friendship with Mr. C, and introduced him into hon- 
ourable society and the road to fortune. A very an- 
cient maiden lady of a large fortune happening to be 
embarrassed in a crowd, a young clergyman offered 
her his arm and politely attended her home ; this at- 
tention so captivated her, that she bequeathed and soon 
after left him her whole estate — though she had many 
poor relations. 

14 



158 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

That class of fictitious works called novels^ though 
much more like real life than the romances which 
preceded, is yet full of these lucky incidents and ad- 
ventures, which are introduced as the chief means to- 
ward the ultimate success. A young man without 
fortune, for instance, is precluded from making his ad- 
dresses to a young lady in a superior situation, whom 
he helieyes not indifferent to him, until he can approach 
her with such worldly advantages as it might not be 
imprudent or degrading for her to cast a look upon. 
Now how is this to be accomplished ? — Why, I sup- 
pose, by the exertion of his talents in some practicable 
and respectable department ; and perhaps the lady, 
besides, will generously and spontaneously condescend 
to abdicate from partiality to him, some of the trap- 
pings and luxuries of rank. You really suppose this 
is the plan ? I am sorry you have so much less genius 
than a novel-writer. This young man has an uncle, 
who has been absent many years, nobody knew where, 
except the young man's luck}'- stars. During his ab- 
sence, the old uncle has made a large fortune, with 
which he returns to his native land, at a time most op- 
portune for every one but a highwayman, who, attack- 
ing him in a road through a wood, is frightened away 
by the young hero, who happens to come there at the 
instant, to rescue and recognize his uncle, and to be in 
return recognized and made the heir to as many thou- 
sands as the lady or her family could wish. Now what is 
the intended impression of all this on the reader's mind? 
What if he certainly have no uncle in any foreign 
fortune-making country ? But there are rich old gen- 
tlemen who are uncles to nobody. Is our novel-reader 
to reckon on it as a likely and a desirable chance, that 
one of these, just after returning from the Indies with 
a ship-load of wealth, shall be set upon by a highway- 
man ; and to take it for certain that in that case he, the 
novel-reader, shall have the luck to come to the very 
spot in the nick of time, to send the dastard robber gial- 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 159 

loping off, to make an instant and entire seizure of the 
old gentleman's affections, find himself constrained to 
go and take a present share of the opulence, and the 
heirship of the whole, and have his patron to join his 
pleading that Amelia, or Alicia, or Cecilia, (as the case 
may be,) msLj now be willing and be permitted to fa- 
vour his addresses ? One's indignation is excited at 
the immoral tendency of such lessons to young read- 
ers, who are thus taught to undervalue and reject all 
sober regular plans for compassing an object, and to 
muse on improbabilities till they become foolish enough 
to expect them ; thus betrayed, as an inevitable conse- 
quence, into one folly more, that of being melancholy 
when they find they may expect them in vain. It is 
unpardonable that these pretended instructors by ex- 
ample should thus explode the calculations and exer- 
tions of manly resolution, destroy the connexion be- 
tween ends and means, and make the rewards of virtue 
so dependent on chance, that if the reader does not 
either regard the whole fable with contempt, or prom- 
ise himself he shall receive the favours of fortune in 
some similar way, he must close the book with the con- 
viction that he may hang or drown himself as soon as 
he pleases ; that is to say, unless he has learnt from 
some other source a better morality and religion than 
these books will ever teach him. 

Another deception in respect of means, is the facility 
with which fancy passes along the train of them, and 
reckons to their ultimate effect at a glance,without rest- 
ing at the successive stages, and considering the labours 
and hazards of the protracted slow process from each 
point to the next. If a given number of years are al- 
lowed requisite for the accomplishment of an object, the 
romantic mind vaults from one last day of December 
to another, and seizes at once the whole product of all 
the intermediate days, without condescending to recol- 
lect that the sun never shone yet on three hundred and 
sixty-five days at once, and that they must be slowly 



160 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

told and laboured one by one. If a favourite plan is 
to be accomplished by means of a certain large amount 
of property, which is to be produced from what is at 
present a very small one, the calculations of a sanguine 
mind can change shillings into guineas, and guineas 
into hundreds of pounds, a thousand times faster than, 
in the actual experiment, those lazy shillings and 
guineas can be compelled to mount to these higher 
denominations of value. You remember the noble 
calculation of Alnaschar on his basket of earthen- 
ware, which was so soon to obtain him the Sultan's 
daughter. 

Where imagination is not delusive enough to em- 
body future casualties as effective means, it may yet 
represent very inadequate means as competent. In a 
well-balanced mind, no conception will grow into a 
favourite purpose, unaccompanied by a process of the 
judgment, deciding its practicability by an estimate of 
the means ; in a mind under the ascendency of imagina- 
tion this is a subordinate after-task. By the time that 
this comes to be considered, the projector is too much 
enamoured of an end that is deemed to be great, 
to abandon it because the means are suspected to be 
little. But then they must cease to appear little ; for 
there must be an apparent proportion between the 
means and the end. Well, trust the whole concern to 
the plastic faculty, and presently every insignificant 
particle of instrumentality, and every petty contrivance 
for its management, will swell into magnitude ; pigmies 
and Lilliputians with their tiny arrows will soon grow 
up into giants wielding spears ; and the diffident con- 
sciousness which was at first somewhat afraid to 
measure the plan, as to its means of execution, against 
the object, will give place to a generous scorn of the 
timidity of doubting. The mind will most ingeniously 
place the apparatus between its eye and the object at a 
distance, and be deluded by the false position which 
makes the one look as large as the other. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC, IQl 

The consideration of the deceptive calculations on the 
effect of insufficient means, would lead to a wide variety 
of particulars; I will only touch slightly on a few. 
Various projects of a benevolent order would come under 
this charge. Did you ever listen to the discussion of 
plans for the civilization of barbarous nations without 
the intervention of conquest? I have, with the most 
sceptical kind of interest.* That very many millions 
of the species should form only a brutal adjunct to 
civilized and enlightened man is a disastrous thing, 
notwithstanding the whimsical attempts of some inge- 
nious men to represent the state of roving savages as 
preferable to every other condition of life ; a state for 
which, no doubt, they would have been willing, if they 
could have the requisite physical seasoning for it, to 
abandon their fame and proud refinements. But where 
are the means to reclaim these wretched beings into the 
civilized family of man ? A few examples indeed are 
found in history, of barbarous tribes being formed into 
well-ordered and considerably enlightened states by one 
man, who began the attempt without any power but that 
of persuasion, and perhaps delusion. There are other 
instances, of the success obtained by a small combina- 
tion of men employing the same means ; as in the great 
undertaking of the Jesuits in South America, But 
have not these moral phenomena been far too few to be 
made a standard for the speculations of sober men ? And 
have they not also come to us with too little explana- 
tion to illustrate any general principles 1 To me it ap- 
pears extremely difficult to comprehend how the means, 
recorded by historians to have been employed by some 
of the unarmed civilizers, could have produced so great 
an effect. In observing the half-civilized condition of 
a large part of the population of these more improved 
countries, and in reading what travellers describe of the 

* I here place out of view that religion by which Omnipotence 
will at length transform the world, 
14* 



162 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

state and dispositions of the various orders of savages, 
it would seem a presumption unwarranted by any thing 
we ever saw of the powers of the human mind to sup- 
pose that any man, or any ten men now on earth, if 
landed and left on a savage coast, would be able to 
transform a number of stupid or ferocious tribes into a 
community of mild intelligence and regular industry. 
We are therefore led to believe that the few unaccounta- 
ble instances conspicuous in the history of the world, 
of the success of one or a few men in this work, must 
have been the result of such a combination of favoura- 
ble circumstances, co-operating with their genius and 
perseverance, as no other man can hope to experience. 
Such events seem like Joshua's arresting the sun and 
moon, things that have been done, but can be done no 
more. Pray, which of you, J should say, could expect 
to imitate wilh success, if indeed he could think it right 
to try the deception of Manco Capac, and awe a wild 
multitude into order by something analogous to a pre- 
tended commission from the sun ? What w^ould be 
your first expedient in the attempt to substitute that 
regularity and constraint which they hate, for that 
lawless liberty which they love ? How could you 
reduce them to be conscious, or incite them to be prou(i 
of those wants, for being subject to which they would 
regard you as their inferiors ; wants of which, unless 
they could comprehend the refinement, they must neces- 
sarily despise the debility? By what magic are you 
to render visible and palpable any part of the world of 
science or of abstraction, to beings who have hardly 
words to denominate even their sensations 1 And by 
what concentrated force of all kinds of magic together, 
that Egypt or Chaldea ever pretended, are you to in- 
troduce humanity and refinement among such creatures 
as the Northern Indians, described by Mr. Hearne ? 
If an animated young philanthropist still zealously 
maintained that it might be done, I should be amused 
to think how that warm imagination would be quelled^ 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 163 

if he were obliged to make the experiment. It is easy 
for him to be romantic while enlivened by the inter- 
course of cultivated society, while reading of the contri- 
vances and the patience of ancient legislators, or while 
infected with the enthusiasm of poetry. He feels as if 
he could be the moral conqueror of a continent. He 
becomes a Hercules amidst imaginary labours ; he 
traverses untired, while in his room, wide tracts of the 
wilderness ; he surrounds himself with savage men, 
without either trembling or revolting at their aspects 
or fierce exclamations, or the proudly exhibited and 
vaunted trophies of their sanguinary exploits ; he makes 
eloquent speeches to them, not knowing a word of their 
language, which language, if he did know it, he would 
find a wretched vehicle for the humblest of his mean- 
ings ; they listen with the deepest attention, are con- 
vinced of the necessity of adopting new habits of life, 
and speedily soften into humanity and brighten into 
wisdom. But he would become sober enough, if com- 
pelled to travel half a thousand miles through the desert, 
or over the snow, with some of these subjects of his 
lectures and legislation ; to accompany them in a hunt- 
ing excursion ; to choose in a stormy night between 
exposure in the open air and the smoke and grossness 
of their cabins ; to observe the intellectual faculty nar- 
rowed almost to a point, limited to a scant}'- number of 
the meanest class of ideas ; to find by repeated experi- 
ments that his kind of ideas could neither reach their 
understanding nor excite their curiosity ; to see the ra- 
venous appetite of wolves succeeded for a season by a 
stupefaction insensible even to the few interests which 
kindle the ardour of a savage ; to witness loathsome 
habits occasionally diversified by abominable ceremo- 
nies ; or to be for once the spectator of some of the 
circumstances attendant on the wars of savages. 

But there are many more familiar illustrations of the 
extravagant estimate of means. One is, the expec- 
tation of far too much from mere direct instruction. 



164 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

This is indeed so general, that it will hardly be de- 
nominated romantic, except in the most excessive in- 
stances. Observe it, however, a moment in the con- 
cern of education. Nothing seems more evident than 
the influence of external circumstances, distinct from 
the regular discipline of the parent or tutor, in forming' 
the character of youth. Nothing again seems more 
evident than that direct instruction, though an useful 
co-operator with the influence of these circumstances 
when they are auspicious, is a feeble counteractor if 
they be malignant. And yet this mere instruction is 
enough, in the account of thousands of parents, to lead 
the youth to wisdom and happiness ; even tbat very 
youth whom the united influence of almost all things 
else which he is exposed to see, and hear, and partici- 
pate, is drawing, with the unrelaxing grasp of a fiend, 
to destruction. 

A too sanguine opinion of the efficacy of instruction, 
has sometimes possessed those who teach from the pul- 
pit. Till the dispensations of a better age shall be 
opened on the world, the measure of effect which may 
reasonably be expected from preaching, is to be deter- 
mined by a view of the visible effects which are actu- 
ally produced on congregations from week to week ; 
and this view is far from flattering. One might appeal 
to preachers in general — What striking improvements 
are apparent in your societies ? When you inculcate 
charity on the Sunday, do the misers in your congre- 
gations liberally open their chests and purses to the 
distressed on Monday? Might I not ask as well, 
whether the stones and trees really did move at the 
voice of Orpheus % After you have unveiled even the 
scenes of eternity to the gay and frivolous, do you find 
in more than some rare instances a dignified serious- 
ness take place of their follies ? What is the effect, on 
the splendid; sumptuous, and fashionable professors of 
Christianity, of your inculcation (if indeed you venture 
it) of that solemn interdiction of their habits, 'j Be not 



THE EriTHET ROMANTIC. 165 

conformed to this world ?" Yet, notwithstanding this 
melancholy state of facts, some preachers, from the per- 
suasion of a mysterious apostolic sacredness in the of- 
fice, or from a vain estimate of their talents, or from 
mistaking- the applause with which the preacher has 
been flattered, for the proof of a salutary effect on the 
minds of the hearers, or, in some instances, from a 
much worthier cause, the affecting influence of sacred 
truth on their own minds, have been inclined to anti- 
cipate striking effects from their public ministrations. 
Melancthon was a romantic youth when he began to 
preach. He expected that all must be inevitably and 
immediately persuaded, when they should hear what 
he had to tell them. But he soon discovered, as he 
said, that old Adam was too hard for young Melancthon. 
In addition to the grand fact of the depravity of the 
human heart, there are so many causes operating in- 
juriously through the week on the characters of those 
who form a congregation, that a thoughtful man often 
feels an invading melancholy amidst his religious ad- 
dresses, from the reflection that he is making a feeble 
effort against a powerful evil, a single effort against a 
combination of evils, a temporary and transient effort 
against evils of almost continual operation, and a 
purely intellectual effort against evils, many of which 
act on the senses. When the preacher considers 
the effect naturally resulting from the sight of so 
many bad examples, the communications of so many 
injurious acquaintance, the hearing and talking of 
what would be, if written, so many volumes of vanity 
and nonsense, the predominance of fashionable dissi- 
pation in a higher class, and of a coarser corruption in 
a lower ; he must indeed imagine himself endowed 
with a super-human power of eloquence, if the instruc- 
tions expressed in an hour or two on the sabbath, and 
soon, as he might know, forgotten by most of his hear- 
ers, are to leave in the mind something which shall be, 
through the week, the efficacious repellant to the con- 



166 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

tact and contamination of all these forces of mischief. 
But how soon he would cease to imagine such an effi- 
cacy in his exhortations, if the greater number of his 
hearers could sincerely and accurately tell him, toward 
the end of the week, in what degree these admonitions 
had affected and governed them, in opposition to their 
corrupt tendencies, their habits, and their temptations ! 
What would be, in the five or six days, the number 
of the moments and the instances in which these in- 
structions would be proved to have been effectual, 
compared with the whole number of moments and cir- 
cumstances to which they were applicable by appropri- 
ateness of instruction and warning ? How often, while 
hearing such a week's detail of the lives of a consider- 
able proportion of a congregation, a man would have 
occasion to say, By whose instructions were these per- 
sons influenced tJien^ in that neglect of devout exer- 
cises, that excess of levity, that waste of time, that 
avowed contempt of religion, that language of profane- 
ness and imprecation, those contrivances of selfishness, 
those paroxysms of passion, that study of sensuality, or 
that habitual general obduracy in evil 1 

But the preacher to whose sanguine temperament I 
am reluctantly applying these cooling suggestions, 
may tell me, that it is not by means of any force which 
he can throw into his religious instructions, that he ex- 
pects them to be efficacious ; but that he believes a di- 
vine energy will accompany what is undoubtedly a 
message from heaven. I am pleased with the piety, 
and the sound judgment, (as I esteem it,) with which 
he expects the conversion of careless or hardened men 
from nothing less than an operation strictly considered 
as of divine power. But I would remind him, that 
the probability, at any given season, that such a power 
will intervene, must be in proportion to the frequency 
or infrequency with which its intervention is actually 
manifested in the general course of experience ; that 
is, in proportion to the number of happy transforma- 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 167 

tions of character which we see taking place under the 
efficacy of religious truth. He must admit this to be 
substantially the rule : if he require that it be modified 
by the consideration of promises and signs from the 
Supreme Power of the near approach of an augmented 
divine interference for the efficacy of religion, I shall 
willingly admit what I can of such a reason for con- 
ceding such a modification. 

Reformers in general are very apt to overrate the 
power of the means by which their theories are to be 
realized. They are for ever introducing the story of 
Archimedes, who was to have moved the world if he 
could have found any second place on which to plant 
his engines ; and imagination discloses to moral and 
political projectors a cloud-built and truly extra-mun- 
dane position, which they deem to be exactly such a 
convenience in their department, as the mathematician, 
whose- converse with demonstrations had saved part 
of his reason from being run away with by his fancy, 
confessed to be a desideratum in his. This terra firma 
is named the Omnipotence of Truth. 

It is presumed, that truth must at length, through 
the indefatigable exertions of intellect, become general- 
ly victorious ; and that all vice, being the result of a 
mistaken judgment of the nature or the means of hap- 
piness, must therefore accompany the exit of error. By 
the same rule it is presumed of the present times also, 
or at least of those immediately approaching, that in 
every society and every mind where truth is clearly 
admitted, the reforms Avhich it dictates must substan- 
tially follow. I have the most confident faith that the 
prevalence of truth, making its progress by a far 
mightier agency than mere philosophic inquiry, is ap- 
pointed to irradiate the latter ages of a dark and trou- 
bled world ; and, on the strength of prophetic intima- 
tions, I anticipate its coming sooner, by at least a 
thousand ages, than a disciple of that philosophy 
which rejects revelation, as the first proud step toward 



168 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

the improvement of the world, is warranted, by a view 
of the past and present state of mankind, to predict 
The assurance from the same oracle is the authority 
for believing that when truth shall have acquired the 
universal dominion over the understanding, it will 
evince a still nobler power in the general effect of con- 
forming the heart and the life to its laws. But in the 
present state of the moral system, our expectations of 
the effect of truth on the far greater number of the 
persons who shall assent to its dictates, have no right 
to exceed such measures of probability as have been 
given by experience. It would be gratifying no doubt 
to believe, that the several powers in the human con- 
stitution are in such faithful combination, that to gain 
the judgment w^ould be to secure the whole man. 
And if all history, and the memory of our own obser- 
vation and experience, could be merged in Lethe, it 
might be believed — perhaps for two or three hours. 
How comld an attentive observer or reflector believe it 
longer? How long would it be that a keenly self-in- 
specting mind could detect no schism, none at all, be- 
tween its convictions and inclinations? And as to 
others, is it not flagrantly evident that very many per- 
sons, with a most absolute conviction, by their own in- 
genuous avowal, that one certain course of action is 
virtue and happiness, and another, vice and misery, do 
yet habitually choose the latter ? It is not improbable 
that several millions of human beings are at this very 
hour thus acting in violation of the laws of rectitude, 
while those laws are acknowledged by them, not only 
as impositions of moral authority, but as vital princi- 
ples of their own true self-interest.* And do not even 

* The criminal himself has the clearest consciousness that he 
violates the dictates of his judgment. How trifling is the subtilty 
which affects to show that he does not violate them, by alleging, 
that every act of choice must be preceded by a determination of 
the judgment, and that therefore in choosing an evil, a man does at 
the time judge it to be on some account preferable, though he may 
know it to be wrong. It is not to be denied that the choice does 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 169 

the best men confess a fierce discord between the ten- 
dencies of their imperfectly renovated nature, and the 
dictates of that truth which they revere ? They say 
with St. Paul, " That which I do, I allow not ; for 
what I would, that I do not ; but what I hate, that I 
do ; to will is present with me, but how to perform that 
which is good, I find not ; the good that I would, that 
I do not, and the evil which I would not, that 1 do." 
The serious self observer recollects instances, (what a 
singularity of happiness if he cannot i) in which a 
temptation, exactly addressed to his passions or his 
habits, has prevailed in spite of the sternest interdict: 
of his judgment, pronounced at the very crisis. Per- 
haps the most awful sanctions by which the judgment 
can ever enforce its authority, were distinctly brought 
to his view at the same moment with its dictates. In 
the subsequent hour he had to reflect, that the ideas of 
God, a future account, a world of retribution, coul.l not 
prevent him from violating his conscience. Thd he 
did not at the critical moment dwell deliberately on 
these remonstrant ideas, in order to give them effect on 
his will, is nothing against my argument. It is of the 
very essence of the fatal disorder, that the passions will 
not let the mind strongly fix on the preventive consid- 
erations. And what greater power than this could 
they need to defeat the power of truth 1 If the pas- 
sions can thus prevent the mind from strongly fixing 
on the most awful considerations when distinctly pre- 
sented by truth in counteraction to temptation, they can 

imply such a conclusion of the judgment. But this conclusion is 
made according to a narrow and subordinate scale of estimating 
good and evil, while the mind is conscious that, judging according 
to a larger scale, that is, the rightfully authoritative one, the opposite 
conclusion is true. It judges a thing better for immediate pleasure, 
which it knows to be worse for ultimate advantage. The criminal 
therefore may be correctly said to act according to his judgment, in 
choosing it for present pleasure. But since it is the great otiice of 
the judgment to decide what is wisest and best on the whole, the 
man may truly be said to act against his judgment, who acts in 
opposition to the conclusion which it forms on this greater scale. 
15 



170 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

destro}^ the efficacy of the truth which presents them. 
Truth can do no more than discriminate the good from 
the evil before us, enforce the inducements to choose 
right, and declare the consequences of our choice. 
When this is inefficacious, its power has failed. And 
no fact can be more evident than that perceptive truth, 
apprehended and acknowledged, often thus fails. Let 
even its teacher and advocate confess honestly whether 
he have not had to deplore numberless times the de- 
ficient efficacy of his own clearest convictions. And 
if we survey mankind as under an experiment rela- 
tive to this point, it will he found, in instances innumer- 
able, that to have informed and convinced a man may 
be but little toward emancipating him from the habits 
which he sincerely acknowledges to be wrong. There 
is then no such inviolable connexion as some men have 
supposed between the admission of truth, and conse- 
quent action. And therefore, most important though it 
is that truth be exhibited and admitted, the expecta- 
tions that presume its omnipotence, without extraordi- 
nary intervention, are romantic delusion. 

You will observe that in this case of trying the ef- 
ficacy of the truth on others, I have supposed the 
great previous difficulty, of presenting it to the under- 
standing so luminously as to impress irresistible convic- 
tion, to be already overcome ; though the experimental 
reformer will find this introductory work such an ar- 
duous undertaking, that he will be often tempted to 
abandon it as hopeless. 



LETTER IV. 

When the gloomy estimate of means and of plans 
for the amendment of mankind does not make an ex- 
ception of the actual human administration of the re- 



THE EPITHET EOMAATIC. 171 

ligion of Christ, I am anxious not to seem to fail in 
justice to that religion, by which I believe that every 
improvement of a sublime order yet awaiting our race 
must be effected. I trust I do not fail ] since I keep 
in my mind a clear distinction between Christianity it- 
self as a thing of divine origin and nature, and the ad- 
ministration of it by a system of merely human pow- 
ers and means. These means are indeed of divine ap- 
pointment, and to a certain extent are accompanied by 
a special divine agency. But how far this agency ac- 
companies them is seen in the measure and limit of 
their success. Where that stands arrested, the fact it- 
self is the proof that further than so the superior opera- 
tion does not attend the human agents and means. 
There it stops, and leaves them to accomplish, if they 
can, what remains. What is it that remains? If the 
general transformation of mankind into such persons 
as could be justly deemed true disciples of Christ, were 
regarded as the object of his religion, how mysterious- 
ly small a part of that object has the divine agency 
ever yet been exerted to accomplish ! And then, the 
awful and immense remainder evinces the inexpressi- 
ble imbecility of the means, when left to be applied as 
a mere human administration. The manifestation of 
its incompetency is fearfully conspicuous in the vast 
majority, the numerous millions of Christendom, and 
the millions of even our own country, on whom this 
religion has no direct influence. I need not observe 
what numbers of these latter have heard or read the 
evangelic declaration thousands of times, nor how very 
many of them are fortified in an insensibility, on which 
its most momentous announcements strike as harmless 
as the slenderest arrows on the shield of Ajax. Prob- 
ably each religious teacher can recollect, besides his 
general experience, very particular instances, in which 
he has set himself to exert the utmost force of his 
mind, in reasoning, illustration, and serious appeal, to 
impress some one important idea, on some one class of 



172 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

persons to whom it was most specifically applicable 
and needful ; and has perceived the plainest indications, 
both at the instant and immediately after, that it was 
an attempt of the same kind as that of demolishing a 
tower by assaulting- it with pebbles. Nor do I need to 
observe how generally, if a momentary impression be 
made, it is forgotten the following hour. 

A man convinced of the truth and excellence of 
Christianity, yet entertaining a more flattering notion 
of the reason and mora] dispositions of man than any 
doctrine of that religion agrees to, may be very reluc- 
tant to admit that there is such a fatal disproportion 
between the apparatus, if I may call it so, of the 
christian means as left to be actuated by mere human 
energy, and the object which is to be attempted. But 
how is he to help himself? Will he reject the method 
of conclusion from facts, in an affair where they so 
peculiarly constitute the evidence ? He cannot look 
at the world of facts and contradict the representation 
in the preceding paragraph, unless his imagination is 
so illusive as to interpose an absolute phantasm be- 
tween his eyes and the obvious reality. He cannot af- 
firm that there is not an immense number of persons, 
even educated persons, receiving the christian declara- 
tions with indifference, or rejecting them with a care- 
lessness partaking of contempt. The right means are 
applied, and with all the force that human effort can 
give them, but with a suspension, in these instances, 
of the divine agency, — and this is the effect ! While 
the fact stands out so palpably to view, I listen with 
something of wonder, and something of curiosity, when 
some professed believers and advocates of the gospel 
are avowing high anticipations of its progressive effi- 
cacy, chiefly or solely by means of the intrinsic force 
which it carries as a rational address to rational crea- 
tures. I cannot help inquiring what length of time is 
to be allowed for the experiment, which is to prove the 
adequacy of the means independently of special divine 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 173 

intervention. Nor can it be impertinent to ask what 
is, thus far, the state of the experiment and the success, 
among those who scout the idea of such a divine agen- 
cy, as a dream of fanaticism. Might it not be prudent, 
to moderate the expressions of contempt for the per- 
suasion which excites an importunity for extraordinary 
influence from the Ahnighty, till the success without it 
shall be greater ? The utmost arroo-ance of this con- 
tempt will venture no comparison between the respec- 
tive success, in the conversion of vain and wicked men, 
of the christian means as administered by those who 
implore and rely upon this special agency of heaven, 
and by those who deny any such operation on the 
mind ; deny it in sense and substance, whatever ac- 
commodating phrases they may sometimes employ. 
Has there indeed been any success at all, in that great 
business of conversion, to vindicate the calculations of 
this latter class from the imputation of all the vainest 
folly that should be meant by the word Romantic ? 

But, when I introduced the mention of reformers 
and their projects, I was not intending any reference 
to delusive presumptions of the operations of Christi- 
anity, but to those speculations and schemes for the 
amendment of mankind which anticipate their effect 
independently of its assistance ; some of them perhaps 
silently coinciding with several of its principles, while 
others expressly disclaim them. Unless these schemes 
bring {vith them, like spirits from heaven, an intrinsic 
competence to the great operation, without requiring 
to be met or aided by forwardness in the nature of the 
Subject, it may be predicted they will turn to the 
mortification of their fond projectors. There is no 
avoiding the ungracious perception, in surveying the 
general character of the race, that, after some allow- 
ance for what is called natural afTection, and for com- 
passionate sympathy, (an excellent principle, but ex- 
tremely limited and often capricious in its operation,) 
the main strength of human feelings consists in the 
15* 



174 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

love of sensual gratification, of trifling amusement, of 
distinction, of power, and of money. And by what 
suicidal inconsistency are these principles to lend their 
force to accomplish the schemes of pure reason and 
virtue, which, they will not fail to perceive, are plotting 
against them?* And if they have far too perfect 
an instinct to be trepanned into such an employment 
of their force, and yet are the preponderating agents 
in the human heart, what other active principles of it 
can the renovator of human character call to his eflfec- 
tual aid, against the evils which are accumulated and 
defended by what is at once the baser and the stronger 
part 1 Whatever principles of a better kind there may 
be in the nature, they can hold but a feeble and inert 
existence under this predominance of the worse, and 
could make but a faint insurrection in favour of the 
invading virtue. The very worst of them may indeed 
seem to become its allies when it happens, as it occa- 
sionally will, that the course of action which reforming 
virtue enforces, falls in the same line in which some of 
these meaner principles can attain their own ends. 
Then, and so far, an unsound coincidence may take 
place, and the external effect of those principles may 
be clad in specious appearances of virtue ; but the 
moment that the reforming projector summons their 
co-operation to a service in which they must desert 
their own object and their corrupt character, they will 
desert him. As long as he is condemned to depend, 
for the efficacy of his schemes, on the aid of so much 
pure propensity as he shall find in the corrupted sub- 
ject, he will be nearly in the case of a man attempting 
to climb a tree by laying hold, first on this side, and 

* I am here reminded of the Spanish story, of a village where 
the devil, having made the people excessively wicked, was punished 
by being compelled to assume the appearance and habit of a friar, 
and to preach so eloquently, in spite of his internal repugnance 
and rage, that the inhabitants were completely reformed. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 175 

then on that, of some rotten twig, which still breaks 
off in his hand, and lets him fall among the nettles. 

Look again to the state of facts. Collective man is 
human nature ; and the conduct of this assemblage, 
under the diversified experiments continually made on- 
it, expresses its true character, and indicates what may- 
be expected from it. Now then, to what principle in 
human nature, as thus illustrated by trial, could you 
with confidence appeal in favour of any of the great 
objects which a benevolent man desires to see accom- 
plished ? If there were in it any one grand principle 
of goodness which an earnest call, and a great occasion, 
would raise into action, to assert or redeem the charac-? 
ter of the species, one should think it v/ould be what 
we call, incorrectly enough, Humanity. Consider then, 
in this nation for instance, which extols its own gener- 
ous virtues to the sky, what lively and rational appeals 
have been made to the whole community, respecting 
the slave trade,* the condition of the poor, the immen- 
sity of cruelty perpetrated on brute animals, and the 
general, national, desperate complacency manifested for 
what is named honourable war, during a whole half 
century of lofty christian pretension, — appeals substan- 
tially in vain. And wiiy in vain ? If humanity were 
a powerful principle in the nature of the community, 
they would not, in contempt of knowledge, expostulation, 
and sp'ectacles of misery, persist in the most enormous 
violations of it Why in vain ? but plainly because 

* Happily this topic of accusation is in a measure now set aside; 
but it would have remained as immovable as the continent of Africa, 
if the legislature had not been forced into a conviction that, on the 
whole, the slave trade was not advantageous in point of pecuniary 
interest. At least the guilt would so have remained upon the na- 
tion acting in its capacity of a state. — This note is added subse- 
quently to the first edition. — It may be subjoined, in qualification 
of the reproach relative to the next article, — the condition of the 
poor, — that during a later period there has been an increase of the 
attention and exertion directed to that condition ; which has, never- 
theless, become worse and worse. 



176 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

there is not enough of that virtue of humanity, everi 
in what is deemed a highly cultivated state of the hu- 
man nature, to answer to the importunate call. Or if 
this be not the cause, let the idolaters of human divin- 
ity call, like the worshippers of Baal, in a louder voice. 
Their success is likely to be the same j they will ob- 
tain no extraordinary exertion of power, though they 
cry from morning till the setting sun. And meanwhile 
the observer, who foresees their disappointment, would 
think himself warranted, but for the melancholy feeling 
that the nature in question is his own, to deride their 
expectations. — You know that a multitude of exempli- 
fications might be added. And the thought of so many 
great and interesting objects, concerning the welfare 
of the human economy, as a sober appreciation of 
means, seems to place beyond the reach of the moral 
revolutionist,* will often, if he has a genuine benevo- 
lence, make him sad. He will repeat to himself, 
" How easy it is to conceive these inestimable improve- 
ments, and how nobly they would exalt my species ; 
but how to work them into the actual condition of man ! 
— Are there somewhere in possibility," he will ask, 
" intellectual and moral engines mighty enough to per- 
form the great process ? Where in darkness is the 
sacred repository in which they lie ? What Marratonf 
shall explore the unknown way to it ? The man who 
would not as part of the price of the discovery, be 
glad to close up all the transatlantic mines, vsrould de- 
serve to be immured as the last victim of those deadly 
caverns." 

* It is obvious that I am not supposing this moral revolutionist 
to be armed with any power but that of persuasion. If he were a 
^nonarch, and possessed virtue and talents equal to his power, the 
pase would be materially different. Even then, he would accom- 

Slish but little compared with what he could imagine, and would 
esire ; yet, to all human appearance, he might be the instrument 
of wonderfully changing the condition of society within his enor 
pire. If the soul of Alfred could return to the eaxth 1 — 
t Spectator, No. 56. 



THE EriTHET ROMANTIC. 177 

But each projecting- visionary thinks the discovery 
is made ; and while surveying his own great maga- 
zine of expedients, consisting of Fortunatus's cap, the 
philosopher's stone, Aladdin's lamp, and other equally 
efficient articles, he is confident that the work may 
speedily he done. These powerful instruments of me- 
lioration perhaps lose their individual names under the 
general denomination of Philosophy, a term that would 
be venerable, if it could be rescued from the misfortune 
of being hackneyed into cant, and from serving the 
impiety which substitutes human ability to divine pow- 
er. But it is of little consequence what denomination 
the projectors assume to themselves or their schemes : 
it is by their fruits that we shall know them. Their 
work is before them ; the scene of moral disorder pre- 
sents to them the plagues w^hich they are to stop, the 
mountain which they are to remove, the torrent which 
they are to divert, the desert which they are to clothe 
in verdure and bloom. Let them make their experi- 
ment, and add each his page to the humiliating records 
in which experience contemns the folly of elated im- 
agination.* 

* In reading lately some part of a tolerably well-written book 
published a few years since, I came to the following passage, which 
though in connexion indeed with the subject of eZec/!io?is, expresses 
the author's general opinion of the state of society, and of the means 
of exalting it to wisdom and virtue. " The bulk of the commu- 
nity begin to examine, to feel, to understand, their rights and . 
duties. They only require the fostering care of the Philosopher 
to ripen them into complete rationality, and furnish them with the 
requisites of political and moral action." Here I paused in won- 
dering mood. The fostering care of the Philosopher ! Why then 
is not the philosopher about his business '? Why does he not go 
and indoctrinate a company of peasants in the intervals of a plough- 
ing or a harvest day, when he will find them far more eager for his 
instructions than for drink 7 Why does he not introduce himself 
among a circle of farmers, who cannot fail, as he enters, to be very ju- 
diciously discussing, with the aid of their punch and their pipes, the 
most refined questions respecting their rights and duties, and want- 
ing but exactly his aid, instead of rnore punch and tobacco, to pos- 
sess themselves completely of the requisites of political and moral 



178 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

All the speculations and schemes of the sanguine 
projectors of all ages, have left the world still a prey 
to infinite legions of vices and miseries, an immortal 
band, which has trampled in scorn on the monuments 
and the dust of the self-idolizing men, who dreamed, 
each in his day, that they were born to chase these 
evils out of the earth. If these vain demigods of an 
hour, who trusted to change the world, and who per- 
haps wished to change it only to make it a temple to 
their fame, could be awaked from the unmarked graves 
into which they sunk, to look a little while round on 
the scene for some traces of the success of their projects, 
would they not be eager to retire again into the cham- 
bers of death, to hide the shame of their remembered 
presumption? The wars and tyranny, the rancour, 
cruelty and revenge, together with all the other un- 
numbered vices and crimes with which the earth is 
still infested, are enough, if the whole mass could be 
brought within one section of the inhabited world, of 
the extent of a considerable kingdom, to constitute its 

action 1 The populace of a manufactory, is another most promising 
seminary, where all the moral and intellectual endowments are so 
nearly "ripe," that he will seem less to have the task of cultivating 
than the pleasure of reaping. Even among the company in the 
ale-house, though the Philosopher might at first be sorry, and might 
Wonder, to perceive a slight merge of the moral part of the man 
in the sensual, and to find in so vociferous a mood that inquiring 
reason which, he had supposed, would be waiting for him with the 
silent anxious docility of a pupil of Pythagoras, yet he would find 
a most powerful predisposition to truth and virtue, and there would 
be every thing to hope from the accuracy of his logic, the compre- 
hensiveness of his views, and the beauty of his moral sentiments. 
But perhaps it will be explained, that the Philosopher does not 
mean to visit all these people in person ; but that having first se- 
cured the source of influence, having taken entire possession of 
princes, nobility, gentry, and clergy, which he expects to do in a 
very short time, he will manage them like an electrical machine, to 
operate on the bulk of the community. Either way the achieve- 
ment will be great and admirable ; the latter event seems to have 
been predicted in that sibylline sentence, "When the sky falls we 
Bhall catch larks," 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 179 

whole population literally infernal, all but their being- 
incarnate ; which last they would soon, through mutual 
destruction, cease to be. Hitherto the power of the rad- 
ical cause of these many forms of evil, the corruption of 
the human heart, has sported with the weakness, or 
seduced the strength, of all human contrivances to sub- 
due them. Nor are there as yet more than glimmer- 
ing signs that we are commencing a better era, in 
which the means that have failed before, or the expe- 
dients of a new and more fortunate invention, are ap- 
pointed to victory and triumph. The nature of man 
still " casts ominous conjecture on the whole success." 
While that is corrupt, it will pervert even the very 
schemes and operations by which the world should be 
improved, though their first principles were pure as 
heaven. The innate principle of evil, instead of indif- 
ferently letting them alone, to work what good they 
can, will put forth a stupendous force to compel them 
into subserviency ; so that revolutions, great discoveries, 
augmented science, and new forms of polity, shall be- 
come in effect what may be denominated the sublime 
mechanics of depravity. 



LETTER V. 

This view of moral and philosophical projects, added 
to that of the limited exertion of energy which. the Al- 
mighty has made to attend, as yet, the dispensation of 
true religion, and accompanied with the consideration 
of the impotence of human efforts to make that dispen- 
sation efficacious where his will does not, forms a mel- 
ancholy and awful contemplation. In the hours when 
itxjasts its gloom over the mind of the thoughtful ob- 
server, unless he can fully resign the condition of man- 
to the infinite wisdom and goodness of his Crearor, he 



180 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

will feel an emotion of horror, as if standing on the 
verge of a hideous gulf, into which almost all the pos- 
sibilities, and speculations, and efforts, and hopes, rela- 
ting to the best improvements of mankind, are brought 
down by the torrent of ages, in a long abortive series, 
to be lost in final despair. 

To an atheist of enlarged sensibility, if there could 
be such a man, how dark and hideous, beyond all 
power of description, must be the long review and the 
undefinable prospect of this triumph of evil, unaccom- 
panied, as it must be presented to his thoughts, by any 
sublime process of intelligent power, converting, in 
some manner unknown to mortals, this evil into good, 
either during the course or in the result. A devout 
theist, when he becomes sad arnidst his contemplations, 
recovers a submissive tranquillity, by reverting to his 
assurance of such a wise and omnipotent sovereignty 
and agency. As a believer in revelation, he is con- 
soled by the confidence both that this dark train of 
evils will ultimately issue in transcendent brightness, 
and that the evil itself in this world will at a future 
period almost cease. He is persuaded that the Great 
Spirit, who presides over this mysterious scene, has 
an energy of influence yet in reserve to beam forth on 
the earth, such as its inhabitants have never, except in 
a few momentary glimpses, beheld ; and that when the 
predestined period is completed for his kingdom to 
come, he will command this chaos of turbulent and 
malignant elements to become transformed into a fair 
and happy moral world. 

And is it not strange, my dear friend, to observe 
how carefully some philosophers, who deplore the con- 
dition of the world, and profess to expect its melio- 
ration, keep their speculations clear of every idea of 
divine interposition ? No builders of houses or cities 
were ever more attentive to guard against the access 
of flood or fire. If He should but touch their pro- 
spective theories of improvement, they would renounce 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 181 

them, as defiled and fit only for vulgar fanaticism. 
Their system of Providence would be profaned by the 
intrusion of the Almighty. Man is to effect an apo- 
theosis for himself, by the hopeful process of exhaust- 
ing his corruptions. And should it take a long series 
of ages, vices, and woes, to reach this glorious attain- 
ment, patience may sustain itself the while by the 
thought that when it is realized, it will be burdened 
with no duty of religious gratitude. No time is too 
long to wait, no cost too deep to incur, for the triumph 
of proving that we have no need of a Divinity, re- 
garded as possessing that one attribute which makes it 
delightful to acknowledge such a Being, the benevo- 
lence that would make us happy. But even if this 
noble self-sufficiency cannot be realized, the indepen- 
dence of spirit which has laboured for it must not sink 
at last into piety. This afflicted world, " this poor ter- 
restrial citadel of man," is to lock its gates, and keep 
its miseries, rather than admit the degradation of re- 
ceiving help from God. 

I wish it were not true that even men who firmly 
believe in the general doctrine of the divine govern- 
ment of the world, are often betrayed into the impiety 
of attaching an excessive importance to human agen- 
cy in its events. How easily a creature of their own 
species is transformed by a sympathetic pride into a 
God before them ! If what they deem the cause of 
truth and justice, advances with a splendid front of dis- 
tinguished names of legislators, or patriots, or martial 
heroes, it must then and must therefore triumph ; 
nothing can withstand such talents, accompanied by 
the zeal of so many faithful adherents. If these shining 
insects of fame are crushed, or sink into the despicable 
reptiles of corruption, alas, then, for the cause of truth 
and justice ! Ail this while, there is no due reference 
to the " Blessed and only Potentate." If, however, the 
foundations of their religious faith have not been sha- 
ken, and they possess any docility to the lessons of 
16 



182 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

time, they will after awhile be taught to withdraw 
their dependence and confidence from all subordinate 
agents, and habitually regard the Supreme Being as 
the sole possessor of real and absolute power. 

Perhaps it is not improbable, that the grand moral 
improvements of a future age may be accomplished in 
a manner that shall leave nothing to man but humil- 
ity and grateful adoration. His pride so obstinately 
ascribes to himself whatever good is effected on the 
globe, that perhaps the Deity will evince his own 
interposition, by events as evidently independent of 
the might of man as the rising of the sun. It may be 
that some of them may take place in a manner but 
little connected even with human operation. Or if 
the activity of men shall be employed as the means 
of producing all of them, there will probably be as 
palpable a disproportion between the instruments and 
the events, as there was between the rod of Moses and 
the amazing phfenomena which followed when it was 
stretched forth. No Israelite was foolish enough to 
ascribe to the rod the power that divided the sea ; nor 
will the witnesses of the moral wonders to come at- 
tribute them to man. " Not by might, nor by power, 
but by my Spirit, saiih the Lord of hosts." 

I hope these extended observations will not appear 
like an attempt to exhibit the whole stock of means, as 
destitute of all value, and the industrious application 
of them as a labour without reward. It is not to 
depreciate a thing, if, in the attempt to ascertain its 
real magnitude, it is proved to be little. It is no in- 
justice to mechanical powers, to say that slender ma- 
chines will not move rocks and massive timbers ; nor 
to chemical ones, to assert that though an earthquake 
may fling a promontory from its basis, the explosion 
of a canister of gunpowder will not. — Between moral 
forces also, and the objects to which they are to be ap- 
plied, there are constituted measures of proportion j 
and it would seem an obvious principle of good sense, 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 183 

that an estimate moderately correct of the value of 
each of our means according to those measures, as far 
as they can be ascertained, should precede every appli- 
cation of them. Such an estimate has no place in a 
mind under the ascendency of imagination, which, 
therefore, by extravagantly magnifying the virtue of 
its means, inflates its projects with hopes which may 
justly be called romantic. The best corrective of 
such irrational expectation is an appeal to experience. 
There is an immense record of experiments, which will 
assign the force of almost all the engines, as worked 
by human hands, in the whole moral magazine. And 
if a man expects any one of them to produce a greater 
effect than ever before, it must be because the talents 
of him that repeats the trial are believed to transcend 
those of all former experimenters, or else because the 
season appears more auspicious. 

The estimate of the power of means, which comes 
in answer to the appeal to experience, is indeed most 
humiliating ; but what then ? It is a humble thing to 
be a man. The feebleness of means is, in fact, the 
feebleness of him that employs them ; for instruments 
to all human apprehension the most inconsiderable, 
can produce the most prodigious effects when wielded 
by celestial powers. Till, then, the time shall arrive 
for us to attain a nobler rank of existence, we must be 
content to work on the present level of our nature, 
and effect that little which we can effect ; unless it be 
greater magnanimity and piety to resolve that because 
our powers are limited to do onl}^ little things, they 
shall therefore, as if in revenge for such an economy, 
do nothing. Our means will do something ; that 
something is what they were meant to be adequate to 
in our hands, and not some indefinitely greater effect, 
which we may all be tempted to wish, and which a 
sanguine visionary confidently expects. 

This disproportion between the powers and means 
with which mortals are confined to work, and the great 



184 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

objects which good men would desire to accomplish, 
is a part of the appointments of Him who determined 
all the relations in the universe ; and he will see to the 
consequences. For the present, he seems to say to his 
servants, " Forbear to inquire why so small a part of 
those objects to which I have summoned your activity, 
is placed within the reach of your powers. Your fee- 
ble ability for action is not accompanied by such a ca- 
pacity of understandmg, as would be requisite to com- 
prehend why that ability was made no greater. 
Though it had been made incomparably greater, 
would there not still have been objects before it too 
vast for its operation ? Must not the highest of created 
beings still have something in view, which they feel 
they can but partially accomplish till the sphere of 
their active force be enlarged ? Must there not be an 
end of improvement in my creation, if the powers of 
my creatures had become perfectly equal to the mag- 
nitude of their designs ? How mean must be the 
spirit of that being that would not make an effort now, 
toward the accomplishment of something higher than 
he w^ill be able to accomplish till hereafter. Because 
mightier labourers would have been requisite to effect 
all that you wish, will you murmur that I have hon- 
oured you, the inferior ones, with the appointment of 
making a noble exertion with however limited success? 
If there is but little power in your hands, is it not be- 
cause I retain the power in mine ? Are you afraid lest 
that power should fail to do all things right, only he- 
cause you are so little made its instruments? Be 
grateful that all the work is not to be done without 
you, and that God employs you in that in which he 
also is employed. But remember, that while the em- 
ployment is yours, the success is altogether his ; and 
that your diligence therefore, and not the measure of 
effect which it produces, will be the test of your char- 
acters. Good men have been employed in all ages 
under the same economy of inadequate means, and 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 185 

what appeared to them inconsiderable success. Go to 
your labours : every sincere effort will infallibly be 
one step more in your own progress to a perfect state ; 
and as to the Cause, when / see it necessary for a God 
to interpose in his own manner, I will come." 

I might deem a train of observations of the melancholy 
hue which shades some of the latter pages of this essay 
of too depressive a tendency, were I not convinced that 
a serious exhibition of the feebleness of human agency 
in relation to all great objects, may aggravate the im- 
pression, often so insufficient, of the absolute supremacy 
of God, of the total dependence of all mortal strength 
and effort on him, an?l of the necessity of maintaining 
habitually a devout respect to his intervention. It 
might promote that last attainment of a zealously good 
man, the resignation to be as diminutive and as im- 
perfectly successful an agent as God pleases. I am 
assured also that, in a pious mind, the humiliating 
estimate of means and human sufficiency, and the con- 
sequent sinking down of all lofty expectations founded 
on them, will leave one single mean, and that far the 
best of all, to be held not only of undiminished but of 
more eminent value than ever was ascribed to it before. 
The most excellent of all human means must be that 
of which the effect is to obtain the exertion of divine 
power. The means which are to be employed in a 
direct immediate instrumentality toward the end, seem 
to bear such a measured proportion to their objects as to 
assign and limit the probable effect. This regulated 
proportion exists no longer, and therefore the possible 
effects become too great for calculation, when that ex- 
pedient is solemnly employed which is appointed as the 
mean of engaging the divine energy to act on the object. 
If the only means by which Jehoshaphat sought to over- 
come his superior enemy, had been his troops, horses, 
and arms, there would have been nearly an assignable 
proportion between these means and the end, and the 
probable result of the conflict would have been a matter 
16* 



186 ON THE APPLICATION OP 

of ordinary calculation. But when he said, " Neither 
know we what to do, but our eyes are up unto thee," 
he moved (if I may reverently express it so) another 
and an infinite force to invade the host of Moab and 
Ammon ; and the consequence displayed in their camp, 
the difference between an irreligious leader, who could 
fight only with arms and on the level of the plain, and 
a pious one who could thus assault from Heaven. It 
may not, I own, be perfectly correct to cite, in illus- 
tration of the efficacy of prayer, the most memorable 
ancient examples. Nor is it needful, since the expe- 
rience of devout and eminently rational men, in latter 
times, has supplied numerous stfiking instances of im- 
portant advantages so connected in time and circum- 
stance with prayer, that with good reason they regarded 
them as the evident result of it.* This experience, 
taken in confirmation of the assurances of the Bible, 
warrants ample expectations of the efficacy of an earnest 
and habitual devotion ; provided still, as I need not 
remind you, that this mean be employed as the grand 
auxiliary of the other means, and not alone, till all the 
rest are exhausted or impracticable. And no doubt 
any man who should, amidst his serious projects, become 
sensible, with any thing approaching to an adequate 
apprehension, of his dependence on God, would far 
more earnestly and constantly press on this great re- 
source than is common even among good men. He 
would as little, without it, promise himself any distin- 
guished success, as a mariner would expect to reach a 
distant coast by means of his sails spread in a stagnation 
of the air. — I have intimated my fear that it is visionary 
to expect an unusual success in the human administra- 
tion of religion, unless there were unusual omens ; now 
an emphatical spirit of prayer would be such an omen; 

* Here I shall not be misunderstood to believe the multitude of 
stories Avhich have been told by deluded fancy or detestable im- 
posture. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC, 187 

and the individual who should solemnly resolve to make 
proof of its last possible efficacy, might probably find 
himself becoming a much more prevailing agent of 
good in his little sphere. And if the whole, or the 
greater number, of the disciples of Christianity, were, 
with an earnest unfailing resolution of each, to combine 
that Heaven should not withhold one single influence 
which the very utmost effort of conspiring and perse- 
vering supplication would obtain, it would be the sign 
of a revolution of the world being at hand. 

My dear friend, it is quite time to dismiss this whole 
subject ; though it will probably appear to you that I 
have entirely lost and forgotten the very purpose for 
which I took it up, which certainly was to examine the 
correctness of some not unusual applications of the 
epithet Romantic. It seemed necessary, first, to de- 
scribe, with some exemplifications, the characteristics 
of that extravagance which ought to be given up to 
the charge. The attempt to do this, has led me into 
a length of detail far beyond all expectation. The 
intention was, next, to display and to vindicate, in an 
extended illustration, several schemes of life, and models 
of character ; but I will not prolong the subject. I 
shall only just specify, in concluding, two or three of 
those modes of feeling and action on which the censure 
of being romantic has improperly fallen. 

One is, a disposition to take high examples for imi- 
tation. I have condemned the extravagance which 
presumes on rivalling the career of action and success 
that has been the appointment of some individuals, so 
extraordinary as to be the most conspicuous phenomena 
of history. But this delirium of ambitious presumption 
is distinguishable enough from the more temperate, 
yet warm aspiration to attain some resemblance to ex- 
amples, which it will require the most strenuous and 
sustained exertion to resemble. Away with any such 
sobriety and rationality as would repress the disposition 
to contemplate with a generous emulation the class of 



188 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

men who have been illustrious for their excellence and 
their wisdom ; to observe with interested self-reference 
the principles that animated them and the process of 
their attainments ; and to fix the standard of character 
high by keeping these exemplars in view. A man may, 
without a presumptuous estimate of his talents, or the 
expectation of passing through any course of unex- 
ampled events, indulge the ambition to resemble and 
follow, in the essential determination of their charac- 
ters, those sublime spirits who are now removed to the 
kingdom where they are to " shine as the stars for ever 
and ever," and those yet on earth who are evidently on 
their way to the same illustrious end. 

A striking departure from the order of custom in 
the rank to which a man belongs, exhibited in his de- 
voting the privileges' of that rank to a mode of excel- 
lence which the generality of the people who compose 
it never dream to be a duty, will by them be denom- 
inated and scouted as romantic. They will wonder why 
a man who ought to be like themselves, should affect 
quite a different style of life, a deserter and alien from 
the reign of fashion, should attempt unusual plans of 
doing good, and should put himself under some extra- 
ordinary discipline of virtue — while yet every point in 
his system may be a dictate of reason and conscience, 
speaking in a voice heard by him alone. 

The irreligious will apply this epithet to the deter- 
mination to make, and the zeal to inculcate, great ex- 
ertions and sacrifices for a purely moral ideal reward 
Some gross and palpable prize is requisite to excite 
their energies ; and therefore self-denial repaid by con- 
science, beneficence without fame, and the dehght of 
resembling the Divinity, appear visionary felicities. 

The epithet will be in readiness for application to a 
man who feels it an imperious duty to realize, as far 
as possible, and as soon as possible, every thing which 
he approves and applauds in theory. You will often 
hear a circle of perhaps respectable persons agreeing 



THE EriTHET ROJIANTIC. 189 

entirely that this one thing spoken of is a worthy prin- 
ciple of action, and that other an estimable quality, 
and a third a sublime excellence, who would be 
amazed at your fanaticism, if you were to adjure them 
thus : " My friends, from this moment you are bound, 
from this moment we are all bound, on peril of the 
displeasure of God, to realize in ourselves, to the last 
possible extent, all that we have thus in good faith de- 
liberately applauded." Through some fatal defect of 
conscience, there is a very general feeling, regarding 
the high order of moral and religious attainments, that 
though it is a happy exaltation to possess them, yet it is 

{)erfectly safe to stop contented where we are, on a far 
ower ground. One is confounded to hear irritable 
persons praising a character of self-command ; persons 
who trifle away their days professing to admire the in- 
stances of a strenuous improvement of time ; rich per- 
sons lavishing fine words on examples of beneficence 
which they know to be far surpassing themselves, 
though perhaps with no larger means ; and all express- 
ing deep re.spect for the men who have been most emi- 
nent in piety ; — and yet all this apparently with the 
ease of a perfect freedom from any admonition of con- 
science, that they are themselves standing in the very 
serious predicament of having to choose, whether they 
will henceforward earnestly and practically aim at these 
higher attainments, or resign themselves to be found 
wanting in the day of final account. 

Finally, in the application of this epithet, but little 
allowance is generally made for the great difference 
between a man's entertaining high designs and hopes 
for himself alone, and his entertaining them relative to 
other persons. It might be very romantic for a man 
to reckon on effecting such designs with respect to 
others, as it may be reasonable to meditate for himself. 
If he feels the powerful habitual impulse of conviction, 
urging and animating him to the highest attainments 
of wisdom and excellence, he may perhaps justly hope 



190 ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 

to approach them himself, though it would be most ex- 
travagant to extend the same hope to all the persons to 
whom he may wish and try to impart the impulse. I 
specify the strictly personal attainments, wisdom and 
excellence^ for the reason that, besides the difference in 
probability of realization, between large schemes and 
hopes as indulged by a man for himself or entertained 
for others, there is a distinction to be made in respect to 
such as he might entertain only for himself His ex- 
traordinary plans and expectations for himself might 
be of such a nature as to depend on other persons for 
their accomplishment, and might therefore be as ex- 
travagant as if other persons alone, persons in no de- 
gree at his command, had been their object. Or, on 
the contrary, they may be of a kind which shall not 
need the co-operation of other persons, and may be re- 
ahzed independently of their will. The design of ac- 
quiring immense riches, or becoming the commander 
of an army, or a person of high official importance in 
national affairs, must in its progress be dependent on 
other men in incalculably too many points and ways 
for a considerate man to presume that he shall be fortu- 
nate in them all. But the schemes of eminent personal 
improvement, depending comparatively little on the 
will, capacity, or conduct of other persons, are romantic 
only when there is some fatal intellectual or moral de- 
fect in the individual himself who has adopted them. 



ESSAY IV. 



ON SOME OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVAN- 
GELICAL RELIGION HAS BEEN RENDERED UN- 
ACCEPTABLE TO PERSONS OF CULTIVATED 
TASTE. 



LETTER I. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

It is Striking to observe, under what various forms 
of character men are passing through this introductory 
season of their being, to enter on its future greater 
stage. Some one of these, it may be presumed, is 
more eligible than all the rest for proceeding to that 
greater stage ; and to ascertain which it is, must be felt 
by a wise man the most important of his inquiries. 
We, my friend, are persuaded that the inquiry, if made 
in good faith, will soon terminate, and that the chris- 
tian character will be selected as the only one, in which 
it is wise to advance to the entrance on the endless 
futurity. Indeed the assurance of our permanent ex- 
istence itself rests but on that authority which dictates 
also the right introduction to it. 

The christian character is simply a conformity to 
the whole religion of Christ. This implies a cordial 
admission of that whole religion ; but it meets, on the 
contrarj'-, in many minds not denying it to be a com- 
munication from God, a disposition to shrink from 
some of its peculiar properties and distinctions, or an 



192 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

effort to displace or neutralize them. I am not now to 
learn that the substantial cause of this is that repug- 
nance in human nature to what is purely divine, which 
revelation affirms, and all history proves, and which 
perhaps some of the humiliating points of the chris- 
tian system are more adapted to provoke, than any 
other thing that bears the divine impress. Nor do I 
need to be told how much this chief cause has aided 
and aggravated the power of those subordinate ones, 
which may have conspired to prevent the success of 
evangelical religion among a class of persons that I 
have in view, I mean those of refined taste, whose 
feelings, concerning what is great and excellent, have 
been disciplined to accord to a literary or philosophical 
standard. But even had there been less of this natural 
aversion in such minds, or had there been none, some 
of the causes which have acted on them would have 
tended, necessarily, to produce an effect injurious to the 
claims of pure Christianity. — I wish to illi^strate several 
of these causes, after briefly describing the antichristian 
feelings in which I have observed that effect. 

It is true that many persons of taste have, without 
any formal disbelief of the christian truth, so little con- 
cern about religion in any shape, that the unthinking 
dislike to the evangelical principles, occasionally rising 
and passing among their transient moods of feeling 
with no distinctness of apprehension, hardly deserves 
to be described. These are to be assigned, whatever 
may be their faculties or improvements, to the multi- 
tude of triflers relatively to the gravest concerns, on 
whom we can pronounce only the general condemna- 
tion of irreligion, their feelings not being sufficiently 
marked for a more discriminative censure. But the 
aversion is of a more defined character, as it exists in 
a mind too serious for the follies of the world and the 
neglect of all religion, and in which the very sentiment 
itself becomes, at times, the subject of painful and ap- 
prehensive reflection, from an internal monition that it 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 193 

is an unhappy symptom, if the truth should be that 
the religious system which excites the displacency, has 
really the sanction of divine revelation. If a person 
in this condition of mind disclosed himself to you, he 
would describe how the elevated sentiment, inspired by 
the contemplation of other sublime subjects, is con- 
founded, and sinks mortified into the heart, when this 
new subject is presented to his view. It seems to re- 
quire almost a total change of his mental habits to ad- 
mit this as the most interesting subject of all, while yet 
he dares not reject the authority which supports its 
claim. The dignity of religion, as a general and re- 
fined speculation, he may have long acknowledged ; 
but it appears to him as if it lost that aspect of dignity, 
in taking the specific form of the evangelical system ; 
just as if an ethereal being were reduced to combine 
his radiance and subtility with an earthly conformation. 
He is aware that religion in the abstract, or in other 
words, the principles which constitute the obligatory 
relation of all intelligent creatures to the Supreme 
Being, must receive a special modification, by means 
of the addition of some other principles, in order to 
become a peculiar religious economy for a particular 
racfe of those creatures, especially for a race low in 
rank and corrupted in nature. And the christian rev- 
elation assigns the principles by which this religion in 
the abstract, the religion of the universe, is thus modi- 
fied into the peculiar form required for the nature and 
condition of man. But when he contemplates some of 
these principles, framed on an assumption, and con- 
veying a plain declaration of an ignominious and 
deplorable condition of our nature, he can hardly help 
regretting that, even if our condition he so degraded, 
the system of our relations with the Divinity, though 
constituted according and in adaptation to that degraded 
state, is not an economy of a brighter character. The 
gospel indeed appears to him like the image in Nebu- 
chadnezzar's dream ; it is refulgent with a head of gold ; 
17 



194 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

the sublime truths or facts of religious theory, which 
stand antecedent and superior to every peculiarity of 
the special dispensations of religion, are luminously 
exhibited ; but the doctrines which are added as dis- 
tinctive of the peculiar circumstances of the christian 
economy, appear less splendid, and as if descending to- 
wards the qualities of iron and clay. If he must admit 
this portion of the system as a part of the truth, his 
feelings amount to the wish that a different theory had 
been true. It is therefore with a degree of shrinking 
reluctance that he sometimes adverts to the ideas pecu- 
liar to the gospel. He would willingly lose this spe- 
cific scheme of doctrines in a more general theory of 
religion, instead of resigning every wider speculation 
for this scheme, in which God has comprised, and dis- 
tinguished by a very peculiar character, all the religion 
which he wills to be known, or to be useful, to our 
world. It is not a welcome conviction, that the gospel, 
instead of being a modification of religion exhibited in 
competition with others, and subject to choice or re- 
jection according to his taste, is peremptorily and ex- 
clusively the religion for our lapsed race ; insomuch 
that he who has not a religion conformed to the model 
in the New Testament does not stand in the only right 
and safe relation to the Supreme Being. He suffers 
himself to pass ,the year in a dissatisfied uncertainty, 
and a criminal neglect of deciding, whether his cold 
reception of the specific views of Christianity will ren- . 
der unavailing his regard for those more general truths, 
respecting the Deity, moral rectitude, and a future state, 
which are necessarily at the basis of the system. He 
is afraid to examine and determine the question, wheth- 
er he may with impunity rest in a scheme composed 
of the general principles of wisdom and virtue, selected 
from the christian oracles and the speculations of philos- 
ophy, harmonized by reason, and embellished by taste. 
If it were safe, he would much rather be the dignified 
professor of such a philosophic refinement on christian- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 195 

ity, than yield himself a submissive and wholly con- 
formed disciple of Jesus Christ. This refined system 
would be clear of the undesirable peculiarities of chris- 
tian doctrine, and it would also allow some different 
ideas of the nature of moral excellence. He would not 
be so explicitly condemned for indulging a disposition 
to admire and imitate some of those models of char- 
acter which, however opposite to pure christian excel- 
lence, the world has always idolized. 

I wish I could display, in the most forcible manner, 
the considerations which show how far such a state of 
mind is wrong. But my object is, to remark on a few 
of the causes which may have contributed to it. 

I do not, for a moment, place among these causes 
that continual dishonour which the religion of Christ 
has suffered through the corrupted institutions, and the 
depraved character of individuals or communities, of 
what is called the christian world. Such a man as I 
have supposed, understands what the dictates and ten- 
dency of that religion really are, so far at least, that in 
contemplating the bigotry, persecution, hypocrisy, and 
worldly ambition, which have been forced as an oppro- 
brious adjunct on Christianity during all ages of its 
occupancy on earth, his mind dissevers, by a decisive 
glance of thought, all these evils, and the pretended 
christians who are accountable for them, from the 
religion which is as distinct from them as the Spirit 
that pervades all things is pure from matter and from 
sin. In his view, these odious things and these wicked 
men, that have arrogated and defiled the christian name, 
sink out of sight through a chasm like Korah, Dathan, 
and Abiram, and leave the camp and the cause holy, 
though they leave tlie numbers small. It needs so 
very moderate a share of discernment, in a protestant 
country at least, where a well-known volume exhibits 
the religion itself, genuine and entire as it came from 
heaven, to perceive the essential disunion and antipathy 
between it and all these abominations, that to take them 



196 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

as congenial and inseparable, betrays, in every instance, 
a detestable want of principle, or a most wretched 
want of sense. The defect of cordiality toward the 
religion of Christ, in the persons that I am accusing,, 
does not arise from this debility or this injustice. They 
would not be less equitable to Christianity than they 
would to some estimable man, whom they would not 
esteem the less because villains that hated him, knew, 
however, so well the excellence of his name and char- 
acter, as gladly to avail themselves of them in any way 
they could to aid their schemes, or to shelter their 
crimes. — But indeed these remarks are not strictly to 
the purpose ; since the prejudice which a weak or cor- 
rupt mind receives from such a view of the christian 
history, operates, as we see by facts, not discriminately 
against particular characteristics of Christianity, but 
against the whole system, and leads toward a denial of 
its divine origin. On the contrary, the class of persons 
now in question fully admit its divine authority, but 
feel a repugnance to some of its most peculiar dis- 
tinctions. These peculiarities they may wish, as I 
have said, to refine away ; but in moments of impartial 
seriousness, are constrained to admit something very 
near at least to the conviction, of their being inseparable 
from the sacred economy. This however fails to subdue 
or conciliate the heart ; and the dislike to some of the 
parts has often an influence on the affections in regard 
to the whole. That portion of the system which they 
think they could admire, is admitted with the coldness 
of a mere speculative assent, from the effect of the 
intruding recollection of its being combined with some- 
thing else which they cannot admire. Those distinctions 
from which they recoil, are chiefly comprised in that 
view of Christianity which, among a large proportion 
of the professors of it, is lenominated in a somewhat 
specific sense, Evangelical _ and therefore I have adopted 
this denomination in the title of this letter. Christianity 
taken in this view contains — a humiliating estimate of 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 197 

the moral condition of man, as a being- radically corrupt 
— the doctrine of redemption from that condition by 
the merit and sufferings of Christ — the doctrine of a 
divine influence being necessary to transform the char- 
acter of the human mind, in order to prepare it for a 
higher station in the universe — and a grand moral 
peculiarity by which it insists on humility, penitence, 
and a separation from the spirit and habits of the 
world. — I do not see any necessity for a more formal 
and amplified description of that mode of understanding 
Christianity which has acquired the distinctive epithet 
Evangelical ; and which is not, to say the least, more 
discriminatively designated among the scoffing part of 
the wits, critics, and theologians of the day, by the 
terms Fanatical, Calvinistical, Methodistical. 

I may here notice that, though the greater share of 
the injurious influences on which I may remark operates 
more pointedly against the peculiar doctrines of Chris- 
tianity, yet some of them are perniciously effectual 
against its moral sentiments and laws, which are of a 
tenour corresponding to the principles it prescribes to 
our faith. I would observe also, that though I have 
specified the more refined and intellectual class of minds, 
as indisposed to the religion of Christ by the causes on. 
which I may comment, and though I keep them chiefly 
in view, yet the influence of some of these causes ex- 
tends in a degree to many persons of subordinate men- 
tal rank. 



LETTER II. 

In the view of an intelligent and honest mind the 

religion of Christ stands as clear of all connexion with 

the corruption of men, and churches, and ages, as when. 

it was first revealed. It retains its purity like Moses 

17* 



198 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

in Eg-ypt, or Daniel in Babylon, or the Saviour of the 
world himself while he mingled with scribes and phari- 
sees, or publicans and sinners. But though it thus 
instantly and totally separates itself from all appearance 
of relation to the vices of bad men, a degree of effort 
may be required in order to display it, or to view it in 
an equally perfect separation from the weakness of good 
ones. It is in reality no more identified with the one 
than with the other ; its essential sublimity is as in- 
capable of being reduced to littleness, as its purity is 
of uniting with vice. But it may have a vital con- 
nexion with a weak mind, while it necessarily disowns 
a wicked one; and the qualities of that mind with 
which it confessedly unites itself, will much more seem 
to adhere to it, than of that with which all its principles 
are plainly in antipathy. It will be more natural to 
take those persons who are acknowledged the real 
subjects of its influence, as illustrations of its nature, 
than those on whom it is the heaviest reproach that 
they pretend to be its friends. The perception of its 
nature and dignity must be clear and absolute, in the 
man who can observe it under the appearance it acquires 
in intimate combination with the thoughts, feelings, 
and language of its disciples, without ever losing sight 
of its own essential qualities and lustre. No possible 
associations indeed can diminish the grandeur of some 
parts of the christian system. The doctrine of im- 
mortality, for instance, cannot be reduced to take even 
a transient appearance of littleness, by the meanest or 
most uncouth words and images that shall ever be 
employed to represent it. But some other things in 
the system have not the same obvious philosophic 
dignity ] and these are capable of acquiring, from the 
mental defects of their believers, such associations as 
will give a character much at variance with our ideas 
of magnificence, to so much as they constitute of the 
evangelical economy. One of the causes therefore 
which I meant to notice, as having excited in persons 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 199 

of taste a sentiment unfavourable to the reception of 
evangelical religion, is, that this is the religion of many 
weak and uncultivated minds. 

The schools of philosophy have been composed of 
men of superior faculties and extensive accomplish- 
ments, who could sustain, by eloquence and capacious 
thought, the dignity of the favourite themes ; so that 
the proud distinctions of the disciples and advocates ap- 
peared as the attributes of the doctrines. The adepts 
could attract refined and aspiring spirits by proclaiming, 
that the temple of their goddess was not profaned by 
being a rendezvous for vulgar men. On the contrary, 
it is the beneficent distinction of the gospel, that though 
it is of a magnitude to interest and to surpass angelic 
investigation, (and therefore assuredly to pour contempt 
on the pride of human intelligence rejecting it for its 
meanness^) it is yet most expressly sent to the class 
which philosophers have always despised. And a good 
man feels it a cause of grateful joy, that a communi- 
cation has come from heaven, adapted to effect the hap- 
piness of multitudes in spite of natural debility or ne- 
glected education. While he observes that confined 
capacities do not preclude the entrance, and the perma- 
nent residence, of that sacred combination of truth and 
power, which finds no place in the minds of many phi- 
losophers, and wits, and statesmen, he is grateful to 
him who has " hidden these things from the wise and 
prudent, and revealed them to babes." 

But it is not to be denied that the natural conse- 
quence follows. Contracted and obscured in its abode, 
the inhabitant will appear, as the sun through a misty 
sky, with but little of its magnificence, to a man who 
can be content to receive his impression of the intel- 
lectual character of the religion from the form of its 
manifestation made from the minds of its disciples ; 
and, in doing so, can indolently and perversely allow 
himself to regard its weakest display as its truest image. 
In taking such a dwelling, the religion seems to imitate 



200 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OF TASTE 

what was prophesied of its author, that, when he 
should be seen, there would be no beauty that he 
should be desired. This humiliation is inevitable ; for 
unless miracles were wrought, to impart to the less in- 
tellectual disciples an enlarged power of thinking, the 
evangelic truth must accommodate itself to the dimen- 
sions and habitudes of their minds. And perhaps the 
exhibitions of it will come forth with more of the 
character of those minds, than of its own celestial dis- 
tinctions : insomuch that if there were no declaration 
of the sacred system, but in the forms of conception 
and language in which they give it forth, even a candid 
man might hesitate to admit it as the most glorious gift 
of heaven. Happily, he finds its quality declared by 
other oracles ; but while from them he receives it in 
its own character, he is tempted to wish he could 
detach it from all the associations which he feels it has 
acquired from the humbler exhibition. And he does 
not greatly wonder that other men of the same intel- 
lectual habits, and with a less candid solicitude to 
receive with simplicity every thing that really comes 
from God, should have admitted a prejudice from these 
associations. 

They would not make this impression on a man 
already devoted to the religion of Jesus Christ. No 
passion that has become predominant is ever cooled by 
any thing which can be associated with its object, while 
that object itself continues unaltered. The passion is 
even willing to verify its power, and the merit of that 
which interests it, by sometimes letting the unpleasing 
associations surround and touch the object for an 
instant, and then chasing them away ; and it welcomes 
with augmented attachment that object coming forth 
from them unstained ; as happy spirits at the last 
day will receive w^ith joy their bodies recovered from 
the dust in a state of purity that will leave every thing 
belonging to the dust behind. A zealous christian 
exults to feel in contempt of how many counteracting 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 201 

circumstances he can still love his religion ; and that 
this counteraction, by exciting his understanding to 
make a more defined estimate of its excellence, has 
resulted in his loving it the more. It has now in some 
degree even pre-occupied those avenues of taste and 
imagination, b}'- which alone the ungracious effect of 
associations could have been admitted. The thing 
itself is close to his mind, and therefore the causes 
which would have misrepresented it by coming be- 
tween, have lost their power. As he hears the sentiments 
of sincere Christianity from the weak and illiterate, he 
says to himself — All this is indeed little, but I am 
happy to feel that the subject itself is great, and that 
this humble display of it cannot make it appear to me 
different from what I absolutely know it to be ; any 
more than a clouded atmosphere can diminish my idea 
of the grandeur of the heavens, after I have so often 
beheld the pure azure, and the host of stars. I am 
glad that it has in this man all the consolatory and all 
the purifying efficacy, which I wish that my more 
elevated views of it may not fail to have in me. This 
is the chief end for which a divine communication can 
have been granted to the world. If this religion, in- 
stead of being designed to make its disciples pure and 
happy amidst their littleness, had required to receive 
lustre from their mental dignity, it would have been 
sent to none of us. At least, not to me ; for though I 
would be grateful for my intellectual advantage over 
my uncultivated fellow-christian, I am conscious that the 
noblest forms of thought in which I apprehend, or 
could represent the subject, do but contract its am- 
plitude, do but depress its sublimity. Those superior 
spirits who are said to rejoice over the first proof of 
the efficacy of divine truth, have rejoiced over its in- 
troduction, even in so humble a form, into the mind 
of this man, and probably see in fact but little dif- 
ference, in point of speculative greatness, between his 
manner of viewing and illustrating it and mine. If 



202 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

Jesus Christ could be on earth as before, he would 
receive this disciple, and benignantly approve, for its 
operation on the heart, that faith in his doctrines, which 
men of taste might be tempted to despise for its want 
of intellectual refinement. • And since all his true dis- 
ciples are destined to attain greatness at length, the 
time is coming, when each pious, though now contracted 
mind, will do justice to this high subject. Meanwhile, 
such as this subject will appear to the intelligence of 
immortals, and such as it will be expressed in their 
eloquence, such it really is now ; and I should deplore 
the perversity of my mind, if I felt more disposed to 
take the character of the religion from that style of its 
exhibition in which it appears humiliated, than from 
that in which I am assured it will be sublime. If, while 
we are all advancing to meet the revelations of eternity, 
I have a more vivid and comprehensive idea than these 
less privileged christians, of the glory of our religion, as 
displayed in the New Testament, and if I can much 
more delightfully participate the sentiments which de- 
vout genius has uttered in the contemplation of it, I 
am therefore called upon to excel them as much in de- 
votedness to this religion, as I have a more luminous 
view of its excellence. 

Let the spirit of the evangelical system once have 
the ascendency, and it may thus defy the threatening 
mischief of disagreeable associations with its principles ; 
as the angels in the house of Lot repelled the base as- 
sailants. But it requires a most extraordinary cogency 
of conviction, and indeed more than simple intellectual 
conviction, to obtain a cordial reception for these prin- 
ciples, if such associations are in prepossession of the 
mind. And that they should be so in the man of taste 
is not wonderful, if you consider how early, how often, 
and by what diversities of the same general cause, they 
may have been made on him. As the gospel com- 
prises an ample assemblage of intellectual views, and 
as the greater number of christians are inevitably inca- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. S03 

pable of presenting- them in a dignified character of 
conception and language from the same causes which 
disqualify them to do such justice to other intellectual 
subjects, it is not improbable that far the greater 
number of expressions which he has heard in his whole 
life, have been utterly below the subject. Obviously 
this is a very serious circumstance ; for if he had heard 
as much spoken on any other subject of high intel- 
lectual rank, as moral philosophy, or poetry, or rhetoric, 
in which perhaps he now takes great interest, and if a 
similar proportion of what he had heard had been as 
much below the subject, it is probable that he and the sub- 
ject would have remained strangers. And it is a melan- 
choly deposition against the human heart, that fewer 
unfavourable associations will cause it to recoil from the 
gospel, than from any other subject which comes with 
high claims. 

The prejudicial influence of mental deficiency or 
meanness associated with evangelical doctrine, may 
have beset him in many ways. For instance, he has 
met with some zealous christians, who not only were 
very slightly acquainted with the evidences of the 
truth, and the illustrations of the reasonableness, of 
their reJigion, but who actually felt no interest in the 
inquiry. Perhaps more than one individual attempted 
to deter him from pursuing it, by suggesting that in- 
quiry either implies doubt, which was pronounced a 
criminal state of mind, or will probably lead to it, as a. 
judgment on the profane inquisitiveness which, on such 
a subject, is not satisfied with implicitly believing. An 
attempt to examine the foundation would be likely to 
end in a wish to demolish the structure. 

He may sometimes have heard the discourse of sin- 
cere christians, whose religion involved no intellectual 
exercise, and, strictly speaking, no subject of intellect. 
Separately from their feelings, it had no definition, no 
topics, no distinct succession of views. And if he or 
some other person attempted to talk on some part of 



204 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

the religion itself^ as a thing definable and important, 
independently of the feelings of any individual, and as 
consisting in a vast congeries of ideas, concerning the 
divine government of the world, the relations of ra- 
tional creatures with the Creator, the general nature 
of the economy disclosed by the Messiah, the system 
of moral principles and rules, and the greatness of the 
future prospects of man, they seemed to have no con- 
cern in that religion, and impatiently interrupted such 
discourse with the observation — That is not experi- 
ence. 

Others he has heard continually recurring to two or 
three points of opinion, adopted perhaps in servile ad- 
diction to a system, or perhaps by some chance seizure 
of the individual's preference, and asserted to be the 
life and essence of Christianity. These opinions he 
has heard zealously though not argumentatively de- 
fended, even when they were not attacked or question- 
ed. If they were called in question, it was an evidence 
not less of depraved principle than of perverted judg- 
ment. All other religious truths were represented as 
deriving their authority and importance purely from 
these, and as being so wholly included and subordinate, 
that it is needless and almost impertinent to give them 
a distinct attention. The neglect of constantly repeat- 
ing and enforcing these opinions w^as said to be the 
chief cause of the comparative failure of the efforts to 
promote Christianity in the world, and of the decay of 
particular religious societies. Though he perhaps 
could not perceive how these points were essential to 
Christianity, even admitting them to be true, they were 
made the sole and decisive standard for distinguishing 
between a genuine and a false profession of it. And 
perhaps they were applied in eager haste to any sen- 
timent v/hich he happened to express concerning re- 
ligion, as a test of its quality, and a proof of its cor- 
ruptness. 

Instances may have occurred in which he has ob- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 205 

served some one idea or doctrine, that was not the dis- 
tinctive peculiarity of any system, to have so monopo- 
lized the mind, that every conversation, from whatevei 
point of the compass it started, was certain to find its 
way to the favourite topic, while he was sometimes fret- 
ted, sometimes amused, never much improved, by ob- 
serving- its instinctive progress to the appointed place. 
If his situation and connexions rendered it unavoidable 
for him often to hear this unfortunate manner of dis- 
coursing on religion, his mind probably fell into a 
Fault very similar to that of his well-meaning acquain- 
tance. As this worthy man could never speak on the 
subject without soon bringing the whole of it dovv^n to 
one particular point, so the indocile and recusant audi- 
tor became unable to think on the subject without ad- 
verting immediately to the narrow illustration of it ex- 
hibited by this one man ; insomuch that this image of 
combined penury and conceit became established in his 
mind as representative of the subject. In consequence 
of this connexion of ideas, he perhaps became disin- 
clined to think on the subject at all ; or, if he was dis- 
posed or constrained to think of it, he was so averse to 
let his views of Christianity thus converge to the little- 
ness of a point, that he laboured to expand them till 
they lost all specifically evangelical distinctions in the 
wideness of generality and abstraction. 

Again, the majority of christians are precluded, by 
their condition in life, from any considerable acquire- 
ment of general knowledge. It would be unpardon- 
able in the more cultivated man not to make the large 
allowance for the natuial effect of this on the extent of 
their religious ideas. But it shall have happened, that 
he has met with numbers who had no inconsiderable 
means, both in the way of money, judging by their 
unnecessary expenses, and of leisure, judging by the 
quantity of time consumed in trivial talk, or in need- 
less sleep, to furnish their minds with various informa- 
tion, but who were quite on a level, in this respect, 
18 



206 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

with those of the humblest rank. They never even 
suspected that knowledge could have any connexion 
with religion ; or that they could not be as clearly and 
comprehensively in possession of the great subject as a 
man whose faculties had been exercised, and whose 
extended acquaintance with things would supply an 
ample diversity of ideas illustrative of religion. He 
has perhaps even heard them make a kind of merit of 
their indifference to knowledge, as if it were the proof 
or the result of a higher value for religion. If there 
was ventured a hint of reprehensive wonder at their 
reading so little, and within so very confined a scope, 
it would be replied, that they thought it enough to 
read the Bible ; as if it were possible for a person 
whose mind fixes with inquisitive attention on what is 
before him, to read through the Bible without thou- 
sands of such questions being started in his thoughts, 
as can be answered only from sources of information 
extraneous to the Bible. But he perceived that this 
reading the Bible was no work of inquiring thought ; 
and indeed he has commonly found, that those who 
have no wish for any thing like a general improve- 
ment in knowledge, have no disposition for the real 
business of thinking even in religion, and that their 
discourse on that subject is the exposure of intellectual 
poverty. He has seen them live on for a number of 
years content with the same confined views, the same 
meagre list of topics, and the same uncouth religious 
language. In so considerable a space of time, the ha- 
bitual inquisitiveness after various truth would have 
given much more clearness to their faculties, and much 
more precision to the articles of their belief They 
might have ramified the few leading articles, into a 
rich variety of subordinate principles and important 
inferences. They might have learned to place the 
christian truth in all those combinations with the other 
parts of our knowledge, by which it is enabled to pre- 
sent new and striking aspects, and to multiply its argu- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 207 

ments to the understanding, and its appeals to the heart. 
They might have enriched themselves by rendering 
nature, history, and the present views of the moral 
world, tributary to the illustration and the effect of their 
religion. But they neglected, and even despised, all 
these means of enlarging their ideas of a subject which 
they professed to hold of infinite importance. Yet 
perhaps, if this man of more intellectual habits showed 
but little interest in conversing with them on that sub- 
ject, or seemed intentionally to avoid it, this was con- 
sidered as pure aversion to religion ; and what had 
been uninteresting to him as doctrine, then became re- 
volting as reproof* 

He may not unfrequently have . heard worthy but 
illiterate persons expressing their utmost admiration of 
sayings, passages in books, or public discourses, which 
he could not help perceiving to be hardly sense, or to 
be the dictates of conceit, or to be common-place in- 
flated to fustian. While on the other hand, if he has 
introduced a favourite passage, or an admired book, 
they have perhaps acknowledged no perception of its 
beauty, or expressed a doubt of its tendency, from its 
not being in canonical diction. Or perhaps they have 
directly avowed that they could not understand it, in a 
manner plainly implying that therefore it could be of 
no value. Possibly when he has expressed his high 
admiration of some of the views of the gospel, not 
ordinarily recognised or exhibited, and bearing what I 
may perhaps call a philosophical aspect, (such, for 
instance, as struck the mind of Rousseau,) he has been 
mortified to find, that some peculiar and even sublime 
distinctions of the religion of Christ are lost to many 
of his disciples, from being of too abstract a kind for 
the apprehension of any bul improved and intellectual 



* I own that what I said of Jesus Christ's gladly receiving one 
of the humbler intellectual order for his disciple, would be but little 
applicable to some of the characters that I describe. 



208 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

If he had generally found in those professed chris- 
tians whose mental powers and attainments were small, 
a candid humility, instructing them, while expressing 
their animated gratitude for what acquaintance with 
religion they had been enabled to attain, and for the 
immortal hopes springing from it, to feel that they had 
but a confined view of a subject which is of immense 
variety and magnitude, he might have been too much 
pleased by this amiable temper to be much repelled 
by the defective character of their conceptions and ex- 
pressions. But often, on the contrary, they may have 
shown such a complacent assurance of sufficiency in 
the little sphere, as if it self-evidently comprised eveiy 
thing which it is possible, or which it is of consequence, 
for any mind to see in the christian rehgion. They 
were like persons who should doubt the information 
that myriads more of stars can be seen through a tele- 
scope than they ever beheld, and who should have no 
curiosity to try. 

Many christians may have appeared to him to attach 
an extremely disproportionate importance to the precise 
modes of religious observances, not only in the hour of 
controversy respecting them, when they are always ex- 
travagantly magnified, but in the habitual course of 
their religious references. These modes may be either 
such as are adhered to by communities and sects of 
christians, perhaps as their respective marks of dis- 
tinction from one another ; or any smaller ceremonial 
peculiarities, devised and pleaded for by particular in- 
dividuals or families. 

Certain things in the religious habits of somiC chris- 
tians may have disgusted him excessively. Every thing 
which could even distantly remind him of grimace, 
would inevitably do this ; as, for instance, a solemn 
lifting up of the eyes, artificial impulses of the breath, 
grotesque and regulated gestures and postures in relig- 
ious exercises, an affected faltering of the voice, and, I 
might add, abrupt religious exclamations in common 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 209 

discourse, though they were even benedictions to the 
Almighty, which he has often heard so ill-timed as to 
have an irreverent and almost a ludicrous effect. In a 
man of correct and refined taste, the happiest improve- 
ment in point of veneration for genuine religion will 
produce no tolerance for such habits. Nor will the dis- 
like to them be lessened by ever so perfect a conviction 
of the sincere piety of any of the persons who have 
fallen into them. I shall be justified in laying great 
stress on this particular ; for I have known instances of 
extreme mischief done to the feelings relative to religion, 
in young persons especially, through the continued ir- 
ritation of disgust caused by such displeasing habits 
deforming personal piety. 

In the conversation of illiterate christians the sup- 
posed man of taste has perhaps frequently heard the 
most unfortunate metaphors and similes, employed to 
explain or enforce evangelical sentiments ; and prob- 
ably, if he twenty times recollected one of those senti- 
ments, the repulsive figure was sure to recur to his im- 
agination. If he has heard so many of these, that each 
christian topic has acquired its appropriate offensive 
images, you can easily conceive what a lively percep- 
tion of the importance of the subject itself must be 
requisite to overcome the disgust of the associations. 
The feeling accompanying these topics, as connected 
with these distasteful ideas, will be somewhat like that 
which spoils the pleasure of reading a noble poet, Vir- 
gil for instance, when each admired passage recalls the 
phrases and images into which it has been degraded in 
that kind of imitation denominated travesty. It may be 
added, that the reluctance to think of the subject be- 
cause it is connected with these ideas, strengthens that 
connexion. For often the striving not to dwell on the 
disagreeable images, produces a mischievous reaction 
by which they press in more forcibly. The tenacity 
with which ideas adhere to the mind, is in proportion 
to the degree of interest, whether pleasing or unpleas- 
18* 



210 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OP TASTE 

ing", with which they affect it ; and an idea cannot well 
excite a strong-er kind of interest than the earnest wish 
to escape from it. If we could cease to dislike it, it 
would soon cease to haunt us. It may also be observ- 
ed, that the infrequency of thinking on the evangelical 
subjects, will confirm the injurious associations. The 
same mental law prevails in regard to subjects as to 
persons. If any unfortunate incident, or any circum- 
stance of expression or conduct, displeased us in our 
first meeting with a person, it will be strongly recalled 
each time that we see him again, if we meet him but 
seldom ; on the contrary, if our intercourse become fre- 
quent or habitual, such a first unpleasing circumstance, 
and others subsequent to it, may be forgotten. This 
observation might be of some use to a man who really 
wishes to neutralize in his mind the offensive associa- 
tions with evangelical subjects , as he may be assured 
that one of the most effectual means would be, to make 
those subjects familiar by often thinking on them. 

While remarking on the effect of unpleasing images 
employed to illustrate christian principles, I cannot 
help wishing that religious teachers had the good taste 
to avoid amplifying the metaphors of an undignified 
order, which may have a kind of coarse fitness for 
illustration, and are perhaps employed, in a short and 
transient way, in the Bible. I shall notice only that 
common one, in which the benefits and pleasures of 
religion are represented under the image of food. I 
do not recollect that in the Scriptures this metaphor is 
ever drawn to a great length. But from the facility of 
the process, it is not strange that it has been amplified, 
both in books and discourses, into the most extended 
parallel descriptions ; exhausting the dining-room of 
images, and ransacking the language for substantives 
and adjectives, to stimulate the spiritual palate. The 
figure is combined with so many terms in our lan- 
guage, that it will unavoidably occur ; and the analogy 
briefly and simply suggested may sometimes assist the 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 211 

thought without lessening the subject. But it is de- 
grading to spiritual ideas to be extensively and syste- 
matically transmuted, I might say cooked^ into sensual 
ones. The analogy between meaner and more digni- 
fied things should never be pursued further than one 
or two points of obviously useful illustration ; for, if it 
be traced to every particular in which a resemblance 
can be found or fancied, the meaner thing abdicates its 
humble office of merely indicating some qualities of 
the great one, and becomes formally its representative 
and equal. By their being made to touch at all points, 
the meaner is constituted a scale to measure and to 
limit the magnitude of the superior, and thus the im- 
portance of the one shrinks to the insignificance of the 
other. It will take some time for a man to recover 
any great degree of solemnity in thinking on the de- 
lights or the supports of religion, after he has seen 
them reduced into all the forms of eating and drink- 
ing. In such detailed analogies it often happens, that 
the most fanciful, or that the coarsest points of the 
resemblance, remain longest in the thoughts. . When 
the mind has been taught to descend to a low manner 
of considering divine truth, it will be apt to descend to 
the lowest. There is no such violent tendency to ab- 
straction and sublimity, in the minds of the generality 
of readers and hearers, as to render it necessary to take 
any great pains for the purpose of retaining their ideas 
in some degree of alliance with matter. 

We are to acknowledge, then, the serious disadvan- 
tage under which evangelical religion presents itself to 
persons of mental refinement, with the associations 
which it has contracted from its uncultivated and in- 
judicious professors. At the same time, it would be 
unjust not to observe that some christians, of a sub- 
ordinate intellectual order, are distinguished by such 
an unassuming simplicity, by so much rectitude of 
conscience, and by a piety so warm and even exalted, 
as to leave a cultivated man convicted oi a great per- 



212 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

version of feeling, if the faith, of which these are living 
representatives, did not appear to him in stronger at- 
tractive association with their excellence, than in re- 
pulsive association with their intellectual inferiority. 
But I am supposing his mind to be in a perverted state, 
and am far from seeking to defend him. This suppo- 
sition however being made, I feel no surprise, on 
surveying the prevailing mental condition of evan- 
gelical communities, that this man has acquired an 
accumulation of prejudices against some of the distin- 
guishing features of the gospel. Permitting himself 
to feel as if the circumstances which thus diminish or 
distort an order of christian sentiments, were insepara- 
ble from it, he is inclined to regret that there should 
be any divine sanctions against his framing for himself, 
on the foundation of some selected principles in Christi- 
anity which he cannot but admire, but with a qualify- 
ing intermixture of foreign elements, a more liberalized 
scheme of religion. 

It was especially unfortunate, if, in the advanced 
stage of this man's perhaps highly cultivated youth, 
while he was exulting in the conscious enlargement of 
intellect, and the quickening and vivid perceptiveness 
of taste, but was still to be regarded as in a degree the 
subject of education, it was his lot to have the princi- 
ples of religion exhibited and inculcated in a repulsive 
language and cast of thought by the seniors of his 
family or acquaintance. In that case, the unavoidable 
frequency of intercourse must have rendered the coun- 
teractive operation of the unpleasing circumstances, 
associated with christian truth, almost incessant. And 
it would naturally become continually stronger. For 
each repetition- of that which offended his refined men- 
tal habits, would incite him to value and cherish them 
the more, and to cultivate them according to a standard 
still more foreign from all congeniality with his in- 
structors. These habits he began and continued to 
acquire from books of elegant sentiment or philosophic 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 213 

cal speculation, which he read in disregard of the ad- 
vice, perhaps to occupy himself much more with works 
specifically religious. To such literary employment 
and amusement he has again and again returned, with 
a delightful rebound from systematic common-places, 
whether delivered in private or in public instruction ; 
and has felt the full contrast between the force, lustre, 
and mental richness, brightening and animating the 
moral speculations or poetical visions of genius, and 
the manner in which the truths of the gospel had been 
conveyed. He was not serious and honest enough to 
make, when in retirement, any deliberate trial of ab- 
stracting these truths froiTi the vehicle and combination 
in which they were thus unhappily set forth, and in a 
measure disguised, in order to see what they would 
appear in a better form. This change of form he was 
competent to effect, or, if he was not, he had but a 
very small portion of that mental superiority, of which 
he was congratulating himself that his disgusts were 
an evidence. But his sense of the duty of doing this 
was perhaps less cogent, from his perceiving that the 
evangelical doctrines were inculcated by his relations 
with no less deficiency of the means of proving them 
true, than of rendering them interesting ; and he could 
easily discern that his instructors had received the arti- 
cles of their faith implicitly from a class of teachers, or 
the standard creed of a religious community, without 
even perhaps a subsequent exercise of reasoning to 
confirm what they had thus adopted. They believed 
these articles through the habit of hearing them, and 
maintained them by the habit of believing them. The' 
recoil of his feelings, therefore, did not alarm his con- 
science with the apprehension that it might be abso- 
lutely the truth of GoJ, that, under this uninviting 
form, he was loath to embrace. Unaided by such an 
impression already existing, and unarmed with a force 
of argument to work conviction, the seriousness, per- 
haps sometimes harsh seriousness, of his friends, reite- 



214 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

rating the assertion of his mind being in a fatal condi- 
tion, till he should think and feel exactly as they did, 
was little likely to conciliate his repugnance. When 
sometimes their admonitions took the mild or pathetic 
tone, his respect for their piety, and his gratitude for 
their affectionate solicitude, had perhaps a momentary 
effect to make him earnestly wish he coqjd renounce 
his intellectual fastidiousness, and adopt in pious sim- 
plicity all their feelings and ideas. But as the con- 
tracted views, the rude figures, and the mixture of sys- 
tematic and illiterate language, recurred, his mind 
would again revolt, and compel him to say. This can 
not, will not, be my mode of religion. 

Now, one wishes there had been some enlightened 
friend to say to such a man. Why will you not under- 
stand that there is no necessity for this to be the mode 
of your religion ? By what want of acuteness do you 
fail to distinguish between the mode, (a mere extrinsic 
and accidental mode,) and the substance 1 In the world 
of nature you see the same elements wrought into the 
plainest and the most beautiful, into the most diminu- 
tive and the most majestic forms. So the same simple 
principles of christian truth may constitute the basis of 
a. very inferior, or a very noble, order of ideas. The 
principles themselves have an essential quality which 
is not convertible ; but they were not imparted to man 
to be fixed in the mind as so many bare scientific propo- 
sitions, each confined to one single mode of conception, 
without any collateral ideas, and to be always express- 
ed in one unalterable form of words. They are placed 
there in order to spread out, if I might so express it, 
into a great multitude and diversity of ideas and feel- 
ings. These ideas and feelings, forming round the 
pure simple principles, will correspond, and will make 
those principles themselves seem to correspond, to the 
meaner or the more dignified intellectual rank of the 
mind. Why will you not perceive, that if the subject 
takes so humble a style in its less intellectual believers, 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 215 

it is not that it cannot unfold greater proportions through 
a gradation of larger and still larger faculties, and with 
facility occupy the whole capacity of the amplest, in 
the same manner as the ocean fills a gulf as easily as 
a creek ! Through this climax it retains an identity 
of its essential principles, and appears progressively a 
nobler thing only by gaining a position for more con- 
spicuously displaying itself Why will you not go with 
it through this gradation, till you see it presented in a 
greatness of character adequate to the utmost that you 
can. without folly, attribute to yourself of large and 
improved faculty ? Never fear lest the gospel should 
prove not sublime enough for the elevation of your 
thoughts. If you could attain an intellectual eminence 
from which you would look wiih pity on the rank you 
at present hold, you would still find the dignity of this 
subject on your level, and rising above it. Do you 
doubt this 1 What then do you think of such spirits, 
for instance, as those of Milton and Pascal ? And by 
how many degrees of the intellectual scale shall yours 
surpass them, to authorize your feeling that to be little 
which they felt to be great? They were at times 
sensible of the magnificence of christian truth, filling, 
distending, and exceeding, their faculties, and could 
have wished for even greater powers to do it justice. 
In their loftiest contemplations, they did not feel their 
minds elevating the subject, but the subject elevating 
their minds. Now consider that their views of the 
gospel were, in essence, the same with those of its 
meanest sincere disciples; and that therefore many 
sentiments which, by their unhappy form, have dis- 
gusted you so much, bore a faithful though humble 
analogy to the ideas of these illustrious christians. 
Why then, while hearing such sentiments, have you 
not learnt the habit of recognising this analogy, and in 
pursuance of it casting your thought upward to the 
highest style of the subject, instead of abandoning the 
subject itself in the recoil from the unfortunate mode 



216 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

of presenting it? Have you not cause to fear that 
your dislike goes deeper than this exterior of its exhi- 
bition ? For, else, would you not anxiously seek, and 
rejoice to meet, the divine subject in that transfigu- 
ration of aspect by which its grandeur would thus be 
redeemed ? 

I would make a solemn appeal to the understanding 
and the conscience of such a man. I would say to 
him. Is it to the honour of a mind of taste, that it loses, 
when the religion of Christ is concerned, all the value 
of its discrimination ? Do you not absolutely know 
that the littleness which you see investing that religion 
is adventitious ? Are you not certain that in hearing 
the discourse of such men, if they were now to be found, 
as those I have named, the evangelical truths would 
appear to you sublime, and that they cannot be less so 
in fact than they would appear as displayed from those 
minds ? But even suppose that they also failed, and 
that all modern christians, without exception, had con- 
spired to give an unattractive and unimpressive aspect 
to the subject of their profession, there is still the Chris- 
tian Revelation — may I not presume that you some- 
times read it % But this is to be done in that state of 
susceptible seriousness, without which you will have 
no just apprehension of its character ; without which 
you are but like an ignorant clown who, happening to 
look at the heavens, perceives nothing more awful in 
that immeasurable wilderness of suns than in the row 
of lamps along the streets. If you do read that book, 
in the better state of feeling, I have no comprehension 
of the constitution of your mind, if the first perception 
would not be that of a simple venerable dignity, and 
if the second would not be that of a certain abstract 
undefinable magnificence ; a perception of something 
which, behind this simplicity, expands into a greatness 
beyond the compass of your mind ; an impression like 
that with which a thoughtful and imaginative man 
might be supposed to have looked on the countenance 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 217 

of Newton, feeling a kind of mystical absorption in the 
attempt to comprehend the magnitude of the soul re- , 
siding within that form. When in this state of serious 
susceptibility, have you not also perceived in the char- 
acter and the manner of the first apostles of this truth, 
while they were declaring it, an expression of dignity, 
altogether different from that of other distinguished 
men, and much more elevated and unearthly ? If you 
examined the cause, you perceived that the dignity 
arose partly from their being employed as living ora- 
cles of this truth, and still more from their whole char- 
acters being pervaded by its spirit. And have you not 
been sometimes conscious, for a moment, that if it pos- 
sessed your soul in the same manner as it did theirs, it 
would raise you to be one of the most excellent order 
of mortals 7 You Avould then stand forth in a combi- 
nation of sanctity, devotion, disinterestedness, superiority 
to external things, energy, and aspiring hope, in com- 
parison of which the ambition of a conqueror, or the 
pride of a self-admiring philosopher, would be a very 
vulgar kind of dignity. You acknowledge these rep- 
resentations to be just ; you allow that the kind of 
sublimity which you have sometimes perceived in the 
New Testament, that the qualities of the apostolic 
spirit, and that the intellectual and moral greatness of 
some modern christians, express the genuine character 
of the evangelical religion, showing that character to 
be of great lustre. But then, is it not most disingenu- 
ous in you to suffer the meanness which you know to 
be but associated and separable, to be admitted by your 
own mind as an excuse for its alienation fron what is 
acknowledged to be in itself the very contrary of mean- 
ness ? Ought you not to turn on yourself with indig- 
nation at that want of rectitude which resigns you to 
the effect of these associations, or with contempt of the 
debility which tries in vain to break them ? Is it for 
you to be offended at the mental weakness of christians, 
you, whose intellectual vigour, and whose sense of 
19 



218 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

justice, but leave you to sink helpless in the fastidious- 
ness of sickly taste, and to lament that so many inferior 
spirits have been consoled and saved by this divine 
faith as to leave on it a soil which forbids your em- 
bracing it, even though your own salvation depend ? At 
the very same time perhaps this weakness takes the 
form of pride. Let that pride speak out ; it would be 
curious to hear it say, that your mental refinement per- 
haps might have permitted you to take your ground on 
that eminence of the christian faith where Milton and 
Pascal stood, if so many humbler beings did not dis- 
grace it, by occupying the declivity and the vale. 

But after all, what need of referring to illustrious 
names ? as if the claims of that which you acknowl- 
edge to be from heaven should be made to depend on 
the number of those who have received it gracefully ; 
or as if a rational being could calmly wait for his taste 
to be conciliated, before he would embrace a system 
by which his immortal interest is to be secured. The 
Sovereign Authority has signified what the difference 
shall be in the end, between the consequences of re-, 
ceiving or not receiving the evangelic declaration. Is 
the difference so announced of such small account that 
you would not, on serious consideration, be overwhelm- 
ed with wonder and shame, that so minor an interfer- 
ence as that of mere taste should so long have made 
you unjust to yourself in relation to what you are in 
progress to realize? And if, persisting to decline an 
exercise of such faithful consideration, you go on a 
venture to meet a consequence unspeakably disastrous, 
will an unhallowed and proud refinement appear to 
have been a worthy cause for which to incur it ? You 
deserve to be disgusted with a divine communication, 
and to lose all its benefits, if you can thus let every 
thing have a greater influence on your feelings con- 
cerning it than its truth and importance, and if its ac- 
cidental and separable associations with littleness, can 
counteract its essential inseparable ones with the Gov- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 219 

ernor and Redeemer of the world, with happiness, and 
with eternity. With what compassion might you be 
justly regarded by an illiterate but zealous christian, 
whose interest in the truths of the New Testament, at 
once constitutes the best felicity here, and securely car- 
ries him toward the kingdom of his Father ; while you 
are standing aloof, and perhaps thinking, that if he and 
all such as he were dead, you might, after a while, ac- 
quire the spirit which should impel you also toward 
heaven. But why do you not feel your individual con- 
cern in this great subject as absolutely as if all men 
were dead, and you heard alone in the earth the voice 
of God; or as if you saw, like the solitary exile of 
Patmos, an awful appearance of Jesus Christ and the 
visions of hereafter ? What is it to you that many 
christians have given an aspect of littleness to the gos- 
pel, or that a few have sustained and exemplified its 
sublimity 1 



LETTER III. 

Another cause which I think has tended to render 
evangelical religion less acceptable to persons of taste, 
is the peculiarity of language adopted in the discourses 
and books of its teachers, as well as in the religious 
conversation and correspondence of the majority of its 
adherents. I do not refer to any past age, when an 
excessive quaintness deformed the composition of so 
many writers on religion and all other subjects ; my 
assertion is respecting the diction at present in use. 

The works collectively of the best writers in the 
language, of those especially who may be called the 
moderns of the language, have created and substantially 
fixed a standard of general phraseology. If any de- 
partment is exempted from the authority of this stand 



220 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

ard, it is the low one of humour and buffoonery, in 
which the writer may coin and fashion phrases at his 
whim. But in the language of the higher, and of 
what may be called middle order of writing, that au- 
thority is the law. It does indeed allow indefinite va- 
rieties of what is called style, since twenty able and 
approved writers might be cited, who have each a dif- 
ferent style ; but yet there is a certain general charac- 
ter of expression which they have mainly concurred to 
establish. This compound result of all their modes of 
writing is become sanctioned as the classical manner 
of employing the language, as the form in which it 
constitutes the most rectified general vehicle of thought 
And though it is difficult to define this standard, yet a 
well-read person of taste feels when it is transgressed or 
deserted, and pronounces that no classical writer has 
employed that phrase, or would have combined those 
words in such a manner. 

The deviations from this standard must be, first, by 
mean or vulgar diction, which is below it ; or secondly, 
by a barbarous diction, which is out of it, or foreign 
to it ; or thirdly, by a diction which, though foreign to 
it, is yet not to be termed barbarous, because it is ele- 
vated entirely above the authority of the standard, by 
some transcendent force or majesty of thought, or a su- 
perhuman communication of truth. 

I might make some charge against the language of 
divines under the first of these distinctions ; but my 
present attention is to what seems to me to come under 
the second character of difference from the standard, 
that of being barbarous. — The phrases peculiar to any 
trade, profession, or fraternity, are barbarous, if they 
were not low; they are commonly both. The lan- 
guage of law is felt by every one to be barbarous in 
5ie extreme, not only by the huge lumber of its technical 
terms, but by its very structure, in the parts not con- 
sisting of technical terms. The language of science 
is barbarous, as far as it difiers arbitrarily, and in more 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 221 

than the use of those terms which are indispensable to 
the science, from the pure general model. And I am 
afraid that, on the same principle, the accustomed dic- 
tion of evangelical religion also must be pronounced 
barbarous. For I suppose it will be instantly allowed, 
that the mode of expression of the greater number of 
evangelical divines,* and of those taught by them, is 
widely different from the standard of general language, 
not only by the necessary adoption of some peculiar 
terms, but by a continued and systematic cast of phrase- 
ology ; insomuch that in reading or hearing five or six 
sentences of an evangelical discourse, you ascertain 
the school by the mere turn of expression, independ- 
ently of any attention to the quality of the ideas. If, 
in order to try what those ideas would appear in an al- 
tered form of words, you attempted to reduce a par- 
agraph to the language employed by intellectual men 
in speaking or writing well on general subjects, you 
would find it must be absolutely a version. You 
know how easily a vast mass of exemplification might 
be quoted ; and the specimens would give the idea of 
an attempt to create, out of the general mass of the lan- 

* When I say evangelical divines, I concur with the opinion of 
those, who deem a considerable, and, in an intellectual and literary 
view, a highly respectable class of the writers who have professed- 
ly taught Christianity, to be not strictly evangelical. They might 
rather be denominated moral and philosophical divines, illustrating 
and enforcing very ably the generalities of religion, and the chris- 
tian morals, but not placing the economy of redemption exactly in 
that light in which the New Testament appears to place it. Some 
of these have avoided the kind of dialect on which I am animad- 
verting, not only by means of a diction more classical and digni- 
fied in the general principles of its structure, but also by avoicSng 
the ideas with which the phrases of this dialect are commonly as- 
sociated. I may however here observe, that it is by no means al- 
together confined to the specifically evangelical department of 
writing and discourse, though it there prevails the most, and with 
the greatest number of phrases. It extends, in some degree, into 
the majority of writing on religion in general, and may therefore 
be called the theological, ahnost as properly as the evangelical, 
dialect. 

19* 



222 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OF TASTE 

guage, a dialect which should he intrinsically spiritual ; 
and SO exclusively appropriated fo christian doctrine as 
to be totally unserviceable for any other subject, and to 
become ludicrous when applied to it.* And this being 
extracted, like the sabbath from the common course of 
time, the general range of diction is abandoned, with 
all its powers, diversities, and elegance, to secular sub- 
jects and the use of the profane. It is a kind of 
popery of language, vilifying every thing not marked 
with the signs of the holy church, and forbidding any 
one to minister to religion except in consecrated 
speech. 

Suppose that a heathen foreigner had acquired a full 
acquaintance with our language in its most classical 
construction, yet without learning any thing about the 
gospel, (which it is true enough he might do,) and 
that he then happened to read or hear an evangelical 
discourse — he would be exceedingly surprised at the 
cast of phraseology. He would probably be arrested 
and perplexed in such a manner as hardly to know 
whether he was trying his faculties on the new doctrine, 
or on the singularity of the diction ; whereas the general 
course of the diction should appear but the same as 
that to which he had been accustomed. It should be 
such that he would not even think of it, but only of 
the new subject and peculiar ideas which were coming 
through it to his apprehension ; unless there could be 
some advantage in the necessity of looking at these 
ideas through the mist and confusion of the double 
medium, created by the super-induction of an uncouth 
.special dialect on the general language. — Or if he were 



* This is so true, that it is no uncommon expedient with the 
would-be wits, to introduce some of the spiritual phrases, in speak- 
ing of any thing which they wish to render ludicrous ; and they 
are generally so far successful as to be rewarded by the laugh or 
the smile of the circle, who probably may never have had the 
good fortune of hearing wit, and have not the sense or conscience 
to care about rehgion. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 223 

not a stranger to the subject, but had acquired its 
leading principles from some author or speaker who 
employed (with the addition of a vrey small number 
of peculiar terms) the same kind of language in which 
any other serious subject would have been discoursed 
on, he would still be not less surprised. "Is it possible," 
he would say, as soon as he could apprehend what he 
was attending to, " that these are the very same views 
which lately presented themselves with such lucid sim- 
plicity to my understanding ? Or is there something 
more, of which I am not aware, conveyed and con- 
cealed under these strange shapings of phrase? Is 
this another stage of the religion, the school of the 
adepts, in which I am not yet initiated 1 And does 
religion then every where, as well as in my country, 
affect to show and guard its importance by relinquish- 
ing the simple language of intelligence, and assuming 
a sinister dialect of its own 1 Or is this the diction of 
an individual only, and of one who really intends but 
to convey the same ideas that I have elsewhere re- 
ceived in so much more clear and direct a vehicle of 
words ? But then, in what remote corner, placed be- 
yond the authority of criticism and the circulation of 
literature, where a noble language stagnates into bar- 
barism, did this man study his religion and acquire his 
phrases ? Or by what inconceivable perversion of 
taste and of labour has he framed, for the sentiments of 
his religion, a mode of expression so uncongenial with 
the eloquence of his country, and so calculated to ex- 
clude it from all benefit of that eloquence ?" 

My dear friend, if I were not conscious of a most 
sincere veneration for evangelical religion itself, I should 
be more afraid to trust myself in making these obser- 
vations on the usual manner of expressing its ideas. If 
my description be exaggerated, I am willing to be 
corrected. But that there is a great and systematical 
alienation from the true classical diction, is most pal- 
pably obvious : and I cannot help regarding it as an 



224 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

unfortunate circumstance. It gives the gospel too much 
the air of a professional thing, which must have its 
peculiar cast of phrases, for the mutual recognition of 
its proficients, in the same manner as other professions, 
arts, crafts, and mysteries have theirs. This is offi- 
ciously placing the singularity of littleness to draw 
attention to the "singularity of greatness, which in the 
very act it misrepresents and obscures. It is giving an 
uncouthness of mien to a beauty which should attract 
all hearts. It is teaching a provincial dialect to the 
rising instructor of a world. It is imposing the guise 
of a cramped formal ecclesiastic on what is destined for 
an universal monarch. 

Would it not be an improvement in the administra- 
tion of religion, by discourse and writing, if christian 
truth were conveyed in that neutral vehicle of expression 
which is adapted indifferently to common serious sub- 
jects? But it may be made a question w^hether it can 
be perfectly conveyed in such language. This point 
therefore requires a little consideration. — The diction 
on which I have animadverted, may be described under 
three distinctions. 

The first is a peculiar way of using various common 
words. And this peculiarity consists partly in ex- 
pressing ideas by such single words as do not simply 
and directly belong to them, instead of other single 
words which do simply and directly belong to them, 
and in general language are used to express them ;* 
and partly in using such combinations of words as 
make uncouth phrases. Now what necessity? The 
answer is immediately obvious as to the former part of 
the description ; there can be no need to use one com- 
mon word in an affected and forced manner to convey 
an idea, which there is another common word at hand 



* As for instance, vsalk^ and conversation, instead of conduct, 
actions, or deportment; Jlesh, instead of, sometimes, body, some- 
times natural inclination. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 225 

to express in the simplest and most usual manner. And 
then as to phrases, consisting of an uncouth combina- 
tion of words which are common, and have no degree 
of technicality, — are they necessary ? They are not 
absolutely necessary, unless each of these combinations 
conveys a thought of so exquisitely singular a turn, 
that no other conjunction of terms could have expressed 
it ; which was never suggested by one mind to another 
till these three or four words, falling out of the general 
order of the language, gathered into a peculiar phrase ; 
which cannot be expressed in the language of another 
country that has not a correspondent idiom ; and 
which will vanish from the world if ever this phrase 
shall be forgotten. But these combinations of words 
have no such pretensions. When you obtain their 
meaning, you may well wonder why a peculiar appa- 
ratus of phrase should have been constructed, to bring 
and retain such an elem.ent of thought within the sphere 
of your understanding. But indeed the very circump- 
stance of there being nothing extraordinary in the sense, 
may have been one inducement to the contrivance. 
There may have been a certain discontent that the im- 
port should not appear more significant, more weighty, 
more sacred, more authoritative, than it could be made 
to appear as conveyed in common secular language. It 
could not be trusted to have its proper effect, without 
some special token borne on its exterior to warn us to 
pay it reverence. In whatever manner, however, the 
language came to be perverted into these artificial modes, 
it would be easy to try whether the ideas, of which they 
are the vehicles, are such as they exclusively are com- 
petent and privileged to convey, insomuch that their 
rejection would be the forfeiture of a certain portion 
of religious truth and sentiment, which would there- 
upon retire beyond the confines of our intelligence, 
disdaining to stay and make an abode in common forms 
of language. And it would be found that these phrases, 
as it is within our familiar experience that all phrases 



226 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

consisting of only common words, and having no 
relation to art or science, can be exchanged for several 
different combinations of words, without materially 
altering the thought or lengthening the expression. 
Make the experiment on any paragraph written in the 
manner in question, on any religious topic whatever, 
and see whether you cannot melt all the uncouth con- 
structions of diction, to be cast in a new and un- 
canonical shape, without letting any sense there was 
in them evaporate. I conclude then, that what I have 
described as the first part of the theological dialect, the 
peculiar mode of using common words, is not absolutely 
necessary as a vehicle of christian truths. 

The second part of the dialect consists, not in a pe- 
culiar mode of using common words, but in a class of 
words peculiar in themselves, as being seldom used 
except by divines, but of which the meaning can be 
expressed, without definition or circumlocution, by oth- 
er single terms which are in general use. For exam- 
ple, edification, tribulation, blessedness, godhness, right- 
eousness, carnality, lusts, (a term peculiar and theolog- 
ical only in the plural,) could be exchanged for paral- 
lel terms too obvious to need mentioning. It is true 
indeed that there are very few terms, if any, perfectly 
synonymous. But when there are several words of 
very similar though not exactly the same signification, 
and none of them belong to an art or science, the one 
which is selected is far more frequently used in that 
general meaning by which it is merely equivalent to 
the others, than in that precise shade of meaning by 
which it is distinguished from them. The words in- 
struction, improvement, for instance, may not express 
exactly the sense of edification ; but the word edifica- 
tion is probably not often used by a writer or speaker 
with any recollection of that peculiarity of its meaning 
by which it differs from improvement or instruction. 
This is still more true of some other words, as for ex- 
ample, tribulation and affliction. Whatever small dif- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 227 

ferience of import these words may have in virtue of 
derivation, it is probable that no man ever wrote tribu- 
lation rather than affliction on account of such differ- 
ence. If, in addition to these two, the word distress 
has offered itself, rhe selection of any one frpm the three 
has perhaps always been determined by habit, or acci- 
dent, rather than by any perception of a distinct signifi- 
cation. The same remark is applicable to the words 
blessed, happy, righteous, virtuous, carnal, sensual, and 
a multitude of others. So that though there are few 
words strictly synonymous, yet there are very many 
which are so in effect, even by the allowance and sanc- 
tion of the most rigid laws to which any of the best 
writers have conformed their composition. Perhaps 
this is a defect in human thinking ; of v/hich the ideal 
perfection may be, that every conception should be so 
discriminative and precise, that no two words, which 
have a definable shade of difference in their meaning, 
should be equally and indifferently eligible to express 
that conception. But what writer or speaker will ever 
even aspire to such perfection of thinking ? — not to say 
that if he did, he would soon find the vocabulary of the 
most copious language deficient of single direct terms, 
and indeed of possible combinations of terms, to mark 
all the sensible modifications of his ideas. If a divine 
felt that he had such extreme discrimination of thought, 
that he meant something clearly different by the words 
carnal, godly, edifying, and so of many others, from 
what he could express by the words, sensual, pious, re- 
ligious, instructive, he would certainly do right to ad- 
here to the more peculiar words ; but if he does not, he 
may perhaps improve the vehicle, without hurting the 
material, of his religious communications, by adopting 
the general and what may be called classical mode of 
expression. 

The third distinction of the theological dialect con- 
sists in words almost peculiar to the language of di- 
vines, and for which equivalent terms cannot be found, 



228 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

except in the form of definition or circumlocution. 
Sanctification, regeneration, grace, covenant, salvation, 
and a few more, may be assigned to this class. These 
may be called, in a qualified sense, the technical terms 
of evangelical religion. Now, separately from any re- 
ligious considerations, it is plainly necessary, in a lit- 
erary view, that all those terms that express a modifi- 
cation of thought which there are no other words com- 
petent to express, without great circumlocution, should 
be retained. They are requisite to the sufficiency of the 
language. And then, in considering those terms as 
connected with the christian truth, I am ready to admit, 
that it will be of advantage to that truth, for some of 
those peculiar doctrines, of which it partly consists, to 
be permanently denominated by certain peculiar words, 
which shall stand as its technical terms. But here sev- 
eral thoughts suggest themselves. 

First, the definitions of some of these christian terms 
are not absolutely unquestionable. The words have 
assumed the specific formality of technical terms, with 
out having completely the quality and value of such 
terms. A certain laxity in their sense renders them of 
far less use in their department, than the terms of sci- 
ence, especially of mathematical science, are in theirs. 
Technical terms have been the lights of science, but, in 
many instances, the shades of religion. It is most un- 
fortunate, when, in disquisitions or instructions, the 
grand leading words, on which the force of all the rest 
depends, have not a precise and indisputable significa- 
tion. The effect is similar to that which takes place in 
the ranks of an army, when an officer has a doubtful 
opinion, or gives indistinct orders. What I would in- 
fer from these observations is, that a christian writer or 
speaker will occasionally io well, instead of using the 
peculiar term, to express at length in other words, at 
the expense of much circumlocution, that idea which 
he would have wished to convey if he had used that 
peculiar term. I do not mean that he should do this 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 229 

SO often as to render the term obsolete. It might be 
useful sometimes, especially in verbal instruction, both 
to introduce the term and to give such a sentence as I 
have described. Such an expletive repethion of the 
idea will more than compensate for the tediousness, by 
the distinctness and fulness of enunciation.* 

Secondly, if the definitions of the christian peculiar 
terms were even as precise and fixed as those of scien-. 
tific denominations, yet the nature of the subject is such 
as to permit an indolent mind to pronounce or to hear 
these terms without recollecting those definitions. In 
deliverino- or writino- and in hearinof or reading-, a 
mathematical lecture, both the teacher and the pupil 
are compelled to form in their minds the exact idea 
which each technical term has been defined to signify ; 
else the whole train of words is mere sound and inan- 
ity. But in religion, a man has a feeling of having 
some general ideas connected with all the words as he 
hears them, though he perhaps never studied, or does 
not retain, the definition of one. I shall have occasion 
to repeat this remark, and therefore do not enlarge here. 
The inference is the same as under the former obser- 
vation ; it is, that the technical terms of Christianity 
will contribute little to precision of thought, unless the 
ideas which they signify be often expressed at length 
in other words, either in explanation of those terms 
when introduced, or in substitution for them when 
omitted. 

Thirdly, it is not in the power of single theological 
terms, however precise their definitions may at any 
time have been, to secure to their respective ideas an 
unalterable stability. Unless the ideas themselves, by 
being often expressed in common words, preserve the 
signification of the terms, the terms will not preserve 
the accuracy of the ideas. This is true no doubt of the 

* It is needless to observe that this would be a superfluous la- 
bour with respect to the most simple of the peculiar words, such 
for instance as salvation. 

20 



230 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

technical terms of science ; but it is true in a much 
more striking manner of the peculiar words in theology. 
If the technical terms of science, at least of the strict- 
est kind of science, were to cease to mean what they 
had been defined to mean, they would cease to mean 
any thing, and the change would be only from knowl- 
edge to blank ignorance. But in the christian theol- 
ogy, the change might be from truth to error ; since 
the peculiar words might cease to mean what they 
were once defined to mean, by being employed in a 
different sense. It may not be difficult to conjecture in 
what sense the terms conversion and regeneration, for 
example, were used by the reformers, and the men who 
may be called the fathers of the established church of 
this country ; but what sense have they subsequently 
borne in the writings of many of its divines? The 
peculiar words may remain, when the ideas which 
they were intended to perpetuate are gone. Thus in- 
stead of being the signs of those ideas, they become 
their monuments ; and monuments profaned into abodes 
for the living enemies of the departed. It must indeed 
be acknowledged, that in some instances innovations 
of doctrine have been introduced partly by declining 
the use of the words that designated the doctrines which 
it was wished to render obsolete ; but they have been 
still more frequently and successfully introduced, under 
the advantage of retaining the terms while the prin- 
ciples were gradually subverted. And therefore I shall 
be pardoned for repeating this once more, that since 
the peculiar words can be kept in one invariable sig- 
nification only by keeping that signification clearly in 
sight in another way than the bare use of these words 
themselves, it would be wise in christian authors and 
speakers sometimes to express the ideas in common 
words, either in expletive and explanatory connexion 
with the peculiar terms, or, occasionally, instead of 
them. I would still be understood to approve entirely 
of the use of a few of this class of terms ; while the 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 231 

above observations may deduct very much from the 
usual estimate of their valtie and importance. 

These pages have attempted to show, in what par- 
ticulars the language adopted by a great proportion of 
christian divines might be modified, and yet remain 
faithful to the principles of christian doctrine. Such 
common words as have acquired an affected cast in 
theological use, might give place to the other common 
words which express the ideas in a plain and unaffect- 
ed manner, and the phrases formed of common words 
uncouthly combined, may be swept away. — Many pe- 
culiar and antique words might be exchanged for other 
single words, of equivalent signification, and in general 
use. — And the small number of peculiar terms ac- 
knowledged and established as of permanent use and ne- 
cessity, might, even separately from the consideration 
of modifying the diction, be often, with advantage to 
the explicit declaration and clear comprehension of 
christian truth, made to give place to a fuller expres- 
sion, in a number of common words^ of those ideas of 
which these peculiar terms are the single signs. 

Now such an alteration would bring the language 
of divines nearly to the classical standard. If evangeli- 
cal sentiments could be faithfully presented, in an order 
of words of which so small a part should be of specific 
cast, they could be presented in what should be sub- 
stantially the diction of Addison or Pope. And if 
even Shaftesbury, BoHngbroke, and Hume, could have 
become christians by some mighty and sudden efficacy 
of conviction, and had determined to write thenceforth 
in the spirit of the Apostles, they would have found, 
if these observations be correct, no radical change ne- 
cessary in the consistence of their language. An en- 
lightened believer in Christianity might have been 
sorry, if, in such a case, he had seen any of them su- 
perstitiously labouring to acquire all the phrases of a 
school, instead of applying at once to its new vocation 



232 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OP TASTE 

a diction fitted for the vehicle of universal thought. 
Are not they yet sufficient masters of language, it might 
have been asked with surprise, to express all their 
thoughts with the utmost precision? As their language 
had been found sufficiently specific to injure the gospel, 
it would have been strange if it had been too general 
to serve it. The required alteration would probably 
have been little more than to introduce familiarly the 
obvious denominations of the christian topics and ob- 
jects, such as, redemption, heaven, mediator, Christ, 
Redeemer, with the others of a similar kind, and a very 
few of those almost technical Avords which I have ad- 
mitted to be indispensable. The habitual use of such 
denominations would have left the general order of 
their composition the same.' And it would have been 
striking to observe by how comparatively small a dif- 
ference of terms a diction which had appeared most 
perfectly pagan, could be christianized, when the writer 
had turned to christian subjects, and felt the christian 
spirit.^On the whole then, I conclude that, with the 
exception which I have distinctly made, the evangeli- 
cal principles maybe clearly exhibited in what maybe 
called a neutral diction. And if they may, I can im- 
agine some reasons to justify the wish that it were gen- 
erally employed. 

As one of these reasons, I may revert to the consid- 
eration of the impression made by the dialect which I 
have described, on those persons of cultivated taste 
whom this essay has chiefly in view, I am aware that 
they are greatly inclined to make an idol of their taste ; 
and I am aware also that no species of irreligion can 
be much worse than to sacrifice to this idol any thing 
which essentially belongs to Christianity. If any part 
of evangelical religion, all injurious associations being 
detached, were still of a nature to displease a refined 
taste, the duty would evidently be to repress its claims 
and murmurs. We should dread the presumption 
which would require of the Deity that his spiritual 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 233 

economy should be, both in reality and evidently to our 
view, correspondent in all parts to the type of order, 
grandeur, or beauty presented to us in the constitution 
of the material world, or to those notions of them which 
have become conventionally established among culti- 
vated minds. But, at the same time, it is a most unwise 
policy for relig-ion, that the sacrifice of taste which 
ought, if required, to be submissively made to any part 
of either its essence or its form as really displayed from 
heaven, should be exacted to any thinor unnecessarily 
and ungracefully superinduced by man. 

As another reason, I would observe, that the dis- 
ciples of the religion of Christ would wish it to mingle 
more extensively and familiarly with social converse, 
and all the serious subjects of human attention. But 
then it should have every facility, that would not com- 
promise its genuine character, for doing so. And a 
peculiar phraseology is the direct contrary of such 
facility, as it gives to what is already by its own 
nature eminently distinguished from common subjects, 
an artificial strangeness, which makes it difficult for 
discourse to slide into it, and revert to it and from it, 
without a formal and uncouth transition. The subject 
is placed in a condition like that of an entire foreigner 
in company, who is debarred from taking any share in 
the conversation, till some one interrupts it by turning 
directty to him, and beginning to talk with him in the 
foreign language. You have sometimes observed, 
when a person has introduced religious topics, in the 
course of perhaps a tolerably rational conversation on 
other interesting subjects, that, owing to the cast of ex- 
pression, fully as much as to the difference of the sub- 
ject, it was done by an entire change of the whole 
tenour and bearing of the discourse, and with as for- 
mal an announcement as the bell ringing to church. 
Had his religious diction been more of a piece with 
the common cast of language of intelligent discourse, 
20* 



234 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

he might probably have introduced the subject sooner, 
and certainly with a much better effect, 

A third consideration, is, that evangelical sentiments 
would be less subject to the imputation of fanaticism, 
if their language were less contrasted with that of other 
classes of sentiments. Here it is unnecessary to say, 
that no pusillanimity were more contemptible than 
that which, to escape this imputation, would surrender 
the smallest vital particle of the religion of Christ. 
We are to keen in solemn recollection his declaration, 
" Whosoever snail be ashamed of me and of my words, 
of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed." Any 
model of terms, which could not be superseded without 
precluding some idea peculiar to the gospel from the 
possibility of being faithfully expressed, it would be 
for his disciples to retain in spite of all the ridicule of 
the most antichristian age. But I am, at every step, 
assuming that every part of the evangelical system can 
be most perfectly exhibited in a diction but little pecu- 
liar ; and, that being admitted, would it not be better 
to avert the imputation, as far as this difference of 
language could avert it ? Better, I do not mean, in 
the way of protective convenience to any cowardly 
feeling, of the man who is liable to be called a fanatic 
for maintaining the evangelical principles ; he ought, 
on the ground both of christian fidelity and of manly 
independence, to be superior to caring about the charge ; 
but better, as to the light in which these principles 
might appear to the persons who meet them with this 
prejudice. You may have observed that in attributing 
fanaticism, they often fix on the phrases, at least as 
much as on the absolute substance, of evangelical 
doctrines. Now would it not be better to show them 
what these doctrines are, as divested of these phrases, 
and exhibited clearly in that vehicle in which other 
important truths are presented ; and thus, at least, to 
defeat their propensity to seize on a mode of exhibition 
so convertible to the ludicrous, in defence against any 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 235 

claim made on them for seriousness respecting the 
substantial matter 1 If sometimes their grave attention, 
their corrected apprehension, their partial approbation, 
might be gained, it were a still more desirable effect. 
And we can recollect instances in which a certain 
degree of this good effect has resulted. Persons who 
had received unfavourable impressions of some of the 
peculiar ideas of the gospel, from having heard them 
advanced almost exclusively in the modes of phrase on 
which I have remarked, have acknowledged their pre- 
judices to be somewhat diminished, after these ideas 
had been presented in the simple general language of 
intellect. We cannot indeed so far forget the lessons 
of experience, and the inspired declarations concerning 
the dispositions of the human mind, as to expect that it 
would be more than very partially conciliated by any 
possible improvement in the mode of exhibiting chris- 
tian truth. But it were to be wished that every thing 
should be done to bring reluctant minds into doubt, at 
least, whether, if they cannot be evangelical, it be 
because they are of an order too rectified and refined. 

As a further consideration in favour of adopting a 
more general language, it may be observed, that hypo- 
crisy would then find a much greater difficulty, as far 
as speech is concerned, in supporting its imposture. 
The usual language of hypocrisy, at least of vulgar 
hypocrisy, is cant ; and religious cant is often an af- 
fected use of the phrases which have been heard em- 
ployed as appropriate to evangelical truth ; with which 
phrases the hypocrite has connected no distinct ideas, 
so that he would be confounded if an intelligent ex- 
aminer were to require an accurate explanation of 
them ; while yet nothing is more easy to be sung or 
said. Now were this diction, for the greater part, to 
vanish from christian society, leaving the truth in its 
mere essence behind, and were, consequently, the pre- 
tender reduced to assume the guise of religion on the 
more laborious condition of acquiring an understanding 



236 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OP TASTE 

of its leading principles, so as to be able to give them 
forth discriminatively in language of his own, the part 
of a hypocrite would be much less easily acted, and 
less frequently attempted. Religion would therefore, 
be seldomer dishonoured by the mockery of a false 
semblance. 

Again, if this alteration of language were introdu- 
ced, some of the sincere disciples of evangelical religion 
would much more distinctly feel the necessity of a 
positive intellectual hold on the principles of their pro- 
fession. A systematic recurring formality of words 
tends to prevent a perfect understanding of the subject, 
by furnishing for complex ideas a set of ready-framed 
signs, (like stereotype in printing,) which a man learns 
to employ without really having the ideas of which the 
combination should consist. Some of the simple ideas 
which belong to the combination may be totally absent 
from his mind, the others may be most faintly appre- 
hended ; there is no precise construction therefore of 
the thought ; and thus the sign which he uses, stands 
in fact for nothing. If, on hearing one of these phrases, 
you were to turn to the speaker, and say, Now what is 
that idea ? What do you plainly mean by that ex- 
pression ? — you would often find with how indistinct a 
conception, with how little attention to the very idea 
itself, the mind had been contented. And this con- 
tentment you would often observe to be, not a humble 
acquiescence in a consciously defective apprehension of 
some principle, of which a man feels and confesses the 
difficulty of attaining more than a partial conception, 
but the satisfied assurance that he fully understands 
what he is expressing. On another subject, where 
the rewere no settled forms of words to beguile him 
into the feeling as if he thought and understood, when 
in fact he did not, and where words must have been 
selected to define his own formation of the thought, his 
embarrassment how to express himself would have 
made him aware that his notion had no .shape, and 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 237 

have compelled an intellectual effort to give it one. 
But it is against all reason that christian truth should 
be believed and professed with a less concern for pre- 
cision, and at the expense of less mental exercise, than 
any other subject would require. And of how little 
consequence it would seem to be, in this mode of be- 
lieving, whether a man entertains one system of prin- 
ciples or the opposite. 

But if such arguments could not be alleged, it would 
still seem far from desirable, without evident necessity, 
to clothe evangelical sentiment in a diction varying in 
more than a few indispensable terms from the general 
standard, for the simple reason, that it must be barba- 
rous; unless, as I have observed, it be raised quite 
above the authority of this standard, and of the crit- 
icism and the taste which appeal to it, by the venerable 
dignity of inspiration which we have no more to ex- 
pect, or by the intellectual power of a genius almost 
surpassing human nature, I do not know whether it 
be absolutely impossible that there should arise a man 
whose manner of thinking shall be so transcendent in 
originality and demonstrative vigour, as to authorize 
him to throw the language into a new order, all his 
own : but it is questionable whether there ever ap- 
peared such a writer, in any language which had been 
cultivated to its maturity. Even Milton, who might, 
if ever mortal might, be warranted to sport with all es- 
tablished authority and usage, and to run the language 
into whatever unsanctioned forms would enlarge his 
freedom in grand mental enterprise, has been, for pre- 
suming in a certain degree to create for himself a pe- 
culiar diction, charged by Johnson with writing in a 
" Babylonish dialect." And Johnson's own mighty 
force of mind has not defended his Roman dialect from 
being condemned by all men of taste. The magic of 
Burke's eloquence is not enough to beguile the per- 
ception, that it is of less dignified and commanding 



238 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 



tone, has less of the claim to be " for all time," than if 
the same marvellous affluence of thought and fancy- 
had been conveyed in a language of less arbitrary, 
capricious, and mannerish character. To revert to the 
theological peculiarity of dialect ; we may look in vain 
for any theologian of genius so supereminently pow- 
erful as might impress on it either a dignity to overawe, 
or a grace to conciliate, literary taste. But indeed if 
we had such a one he would not attempt it. If he dis- 
regarded the classical standard, and chose to speak in 
an alien dialect, it would be a dialect of his own, 
formed in still more complete independence and dis- 
regard of the model which so many theological teach- 
ers have concurred to establish for the language of re- 
ligion. 

It may be said, perhaps, that any such splendid in- 
tervention, in authorization of that model, can he 
spared ; for that the class contains so many of great 
ability, and so many more of great piety and useful- 
ness, that the peculiar diction will maintain its ground. 
Probably it will do so, in a considerable degree, for a 
long time. But no numbers, ability, or piety, will ever 
redeem it from the character of barbarism. 



LETTER IV. 

In defence of the diction which I have been descri- 
bing, it will be said, that it has grown out of the lan- 
guage of the Bible. To a great extent, this is evident- 
ly true. Many phrases indeed which casually occurred 
in the writings of divines, and many which were la- 
boriously invented by those who wished to give to 
divinity a complete systematic arrangement, and there- 
fore wanted denominations or titles for the multitude of 
articles in the artificial distribution, have been incorpo- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 239 

rated in the theological dialect. But a large proportion 
of its phrases consists partly in siich combinations of 
words as were taken originally from the Bible, and 
still more in such as have, from familiarity with that 
book, partly grown in insensible assimilation, and 
partly been formed intentionally, but rudely, in resem- 
blance, to its characteristic language. 

Before proceeding further, I do not know whether it 
may be necessary, in order to prevent misapprehension, 
to advert to the high advantage and propriety of often 
introducing sentences from the Bible, not only in the- 
ological, but in any grave moral composition. Passages 
of the inspired writings must necessarily be cited in 
some instance, in proof of the truth of opinions, and 
may be most happily cited, in many others, to give a 
venerable and impressive air to serious sentiments 
which would be admitted as just though unsupported 
by such a reference to the authority. Both complete 
sentences, and striking short expressions, consisting 
perhaps sometimes of only two or three words, may be 
thus introduced with an effect at once useful and orna- 
mental, while they appear pure and unmodified amidst 
the composition, as simple particles of scripture, quite 
distinct from the diction in which they are inserted. 
When thus appearing in their own genuine quality, as 
lines or parts of lines taken from a venerable book 
which is written in a manner very different from our 
common mode of language, they are read as expres- 
sions foreign to the surrounding composition, and, 
without an effort, referred to the work from which they 
are brought and of which they retain the unaltered 
consistence ; in the same manner as passages, or stri- 
king short expressions, adopted from some respected 
and well-known classic in our language. Whatever 
dignity therefore characterizes the great work itself, is 
possessed also by these detached pieces in the various 
places where they are inserted, but not, if I may so 
express it, mfused. And if they be judiciously inserted, 



240 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

they impart their dignity to the sentiments which they 
are employed to enforce. This employment of the sa- 
cred expressions may be very frequent, as the Bible 
contains such an immense variety of ideas, applicable 
to all manner of interesting subjects. And fiom its 
being so familiarly known, its sentences or shorter ex- 
pressions may be introduced without the formality of 
noticing, either in terms or by any other mark, from 
what volume they are drawn. — These observations are 
more than enough, to obviate any imputation of want- 
ing a due sense of the dignity and force which maybe 
imparted by a judicious introduction of the language 
of the Bible. 

It is a different mode of using biblical language, 
that constitutes so considerable a part of the dialect 
which I iiave ventured to disapprove. When inser- 
tions are made from the Bible in the manner here de- 
scribed as effective and ornamental, the composition 
exhibits two kinds of diction, each bearing its own 
separate character ; the one being the diction which 
belongs to the author, the other that of the sacred book 
whence the citations are drawn. We pass along the 
course of his language with the ordinary feeling of 
being addressed in a common general phraseology ; 
and when the pure scripture expressions occur, they 
are recognised in their own peculiar charoct&r, and 
with the sense that we are reading, in small detached 
portions, just so much of the Bible itself This dis- 
tinct recognition of the two separate characters of lan- 
guage prevents any impression of an uncouth hetero- 
geneous consistence. But in the theological dialect, 
that part of the phraseology which has a biblical cast, 
is neither the one of these two kinds of language nor 
the other, but an inseparable though crude amalgam 
of both. For the expressions resembling those of 
scripture are blended and moulded into the substance 
of the diction. I say resembling ; for though some 
of them are precisely phrases from the Bible, yet most 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 241 

of tliem are phrases a little modified from the form in 
which they occur in the sacred book, by changing or 
adding words, by compounding two phrases into one, 
and by fitting the rest of the language to the biblical 
phrases by an imitative antique construction. In this 
manner the scriptural expressions, instead of appearing 
as distinguished points on a common ground, as gems 
advantageously set in an inferior substance, are reduced 
to become an ordinary and desecrated ingredient in 
an uncouth phraseology. They are no longer brought 
directly from the scriptures, by an act of thought and 
choice in the person who uses them, and with a recol- 
lection of their sacred origin ; but merely recur to him 
in the common usage of the diction, into which they 
have degenerated in the school of divines. They there- 
fore are now in no degree of the nature of quotations, 
introduced for their special appositeness in the par- 
ticular instance, as the expressions of an admired and 
revered human author would be repeated. 

This is the kind of biblical phraseology Avhich I 
could wish to see less employed, — unless it be either 
more venerable or more lucid than that which I have 
recommended. We may be allowed to doubt how 
far such language can be venerable, after considering, 
that it gives not the smallest assurance of striking or 
elevated thought, since in fact a vast quantity of most 
inferior writing has appeared in this kind of diction ; 
that it is not now actually drawn from the sacred 
fountains ; that the incessant repetition of its phrases 
in every kind of religious exercise and performance has 
worn out any solemnity it might ever have had ; and 
that it is the very usual concomitant and sign of a 
servilely systematic and cramped manner of thinking. 
It may be considered also, that, from whatever high 
origin any modes and figures of speech may be drawn, 
they are reduced, in point of dignity, to the quality of 
the material with which they become interfused ; so 
that if the whole character of the dialect of divines is 
21 



242 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

not adapted to excite veneration, the proportion of it 
which gives a colour of scripture-phraseology, not 
standing out distinct from the composition, will have 
lost the virtue to excite it. And again, let it be con- 
sidered, that in almost all cases, an attempt to imitate 
the peculiarity of form in which a venerable object is 
presented, not only fails to excite veneration, but pro- 
vokes the contrary sentiment ; especially when all 
things in the form of the venerable model are homo- 
geneous, while the imitation exhibits some features of 
resemblance incongruously combined with what is 
mainly and unavoidably of a different cast. A grand 
ancient edifice, of whatever order, or if it were of a 
construction peculiar to itself, would be an impressive 
object ; but a modern little one raised in its neighbour- 
hood, of a conformation for the greatest part glaringly 
vulgar, but with a number of antique windows and 
ano-les in imitation of the grand structure, would be a 
grotesque and ridiculous one. 

Scriptural phrases then can no longer make a solemn 
impression, when modified and vulgarized into the tex- 
ture of a language which, taken altogether, is the re- 
verse of every thing that can either attract or com- 
mand. Such idioms may indeed remind one of proph- 
ets and apostles, but it is a recollection which prompts 
10 say, Who are these men that, instead of respectfully 
introducing at intervals the direct words of those re- 
vered dictators of truth, seem to be mocking the sacred 
language by a barbarous imitative diction of their own? 
They may affect the forms of a divine solemnity, but 
there is no fire from heaven. They may show some- 
thing like a burning bush, but it is without an angel. 

As to perspicuity, there will not be a question whether 
that be one of the recommendations of this corrupt 
modification of the biblical phraseology. Without our 
leave, the mode of expression habitually associated with 
the general exercise of our intelligence, conveys ideas 
to us the most easily and the most clearly. And not 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 243 

unfrequently even in citing the pure expressions of 
scripture, especially in doctrinal subjects, a religious 
instructor will find it indispensable to add a sentence 
in order to expose the sense in a plainer manner ; and 
that not as comment, but as explanation. He has 
many occasions for seeing that unless he do this, there 
will not be, in the minds of the persons to be instruct- 
ed, exactly and definitively the idea which he under- 
stands to be expressed in the cited passage. Even to 
possess himself of a clear apprehension, there is, he 
might perceive in his mind, a kind of translating op- 
eration, embodying the idea in more common lan- 
guage, equivalent to the biblical. 

But would not the disuse of a language which seems 
to bear a constant reference to the Bible, by this in- 
timate blending of its phraseology, tend to put the 
Bible out of remembrance? It may be answered, 
that the Bible, as a book which will be read beyond 
all comparison more than any other, will keep itself 
in remembrance, among the serious part of mankind. 
Besides, it may be presumed that religious teachers 
and writers, however secularized the language they 
may adopt, will too often bring the sacred book in 
view by direct reference and citation, to admit any 
danger, from them, of its being forgotten. And though 
its distinct unmodified expressions should be introduced 
much seldomer in the course of their sentences, than 
the half-scriptural phrases are recurring in the diction 
under consideration, they would remind us of the Bible 
in a more advantageous manner, than a dialect which 
has lost the dignity of a sacred language without 
acquiring the grace of a classical one. I am sensible 
in how many points the illustration would be defective, 
but it would partly answer my purpose to observe, that 
if it were wished to promote the study of some vene- 
rated human author of a former age, suppose Hooker, 
the way would not be to attempt incorporating a great 
number of his turns of expression into the essential 



244 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

Structure of our own diction, which would generally 
have a most uncouth effect, but to make respectful 
references, and often to insert in our composition sen- 
tences, and parts of sentences, distinctly as his, while 
our own cast of diction was conformed to the genera^ 
modern standard. 

Let the oracles of inspiration be cited continually, 
both as authority and illustration, m a manner that 
shall make the mind instantly refer each expression 
that is introduced to the venerable book whence it is 
taken ; but let our part of religious language be simply 
ours, and let those oracles retain their characteristic 
form of expression unimitated, unparodied to the end 
of time.* 

* In the above remarks, I have not made any distinction between 
the sacred books in their ow^n language, and as translated. It might 
not, however, be improper to notice, that though there is a great 
peculiarity of language in the original, yet a certain proportion of 
the phraseology, as it stands in the translated scriptures, does not 
properly belong to the structure of the original composition, but is 
to be ascribed to the complexion of the language at the time when 
the translation was made. A translation, therefore, made now, 
and conformed to the present state of the language, in the same 
degree in which the earlier translation was conformed to the state 
of the language at that time, would make an alteration in some 
parts of that phraseology which the theological dialect has attempt- 
ed to incorporate and imitate. If therefore it were the duty of di- 
vines to take the biblical mode of expression for their model, it 
would still be quite a work of supererogation to take this model in 
a wider degree of difference from the ordinary language suited to 
serious thoughts than as it would appear in such a later version. 
This would be a homage, not to the real diction of the sacred scrip- 
tures, but to the earlier cast of our own language. At the same 
time it must be admitted, both that the change of expression which 
a later version might, on merely philological principles, be justified 
by the progress and present standard of our language for making, 
would not be great; and that every sentiment o? prudence and de- 
votional taste forbids to make quite so much alteration as those 
principles might warrant. All who have long venerated the scrip- 
tures in their somewhat antique version, would protest against 
their being laboriously modernized into every nice conformity with 
the present standard of the language, and against any other than 
a very literal translation. If it could be supposed that our language 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 245 

An advocate for the theological unction, who should 
hesitate to maintain its necessity or utility on the ground 
that a considerable proportion of it has grown out of 
the language of scripture, may yet think it has become 
necessary in consequence of so many people having 
been so long accustomed to it. I cannot but be aware, 
that many respectable teachers of Christianity would 
find a very great difficulty to depart from their inveterate 
usage. Nor could they acquire, if the change were 
attempted, a happy command of a more general lan- 
guage, without being considerably conversant with 
good Avriters on general subjects, and sedulously exer- 
cising themselves to throw their thoughts into a some- 
what similar current of language. Unless, therefore, 
this study has been cultivated, or is intended to be cul- 
tivated, it will perhaps be better for them^ especially if 
■fax advanced in life, to retain the accustomed mode of 
expression with all disadvantages. Younger theologi- 
cal students, however, are supposed to become acquaint- 
ed with those authors who have displayed the utmost 
extent and powers of language in its freest form: and 
it is right for them to be told that evangelical doctrine 
would incur no necessary corruption or profanation by 
being conveyed in so liberal, diversified, and what I 

had not yet attained a fixed state, but would progressively change 
for ages to come, it would be desirable that the translation of the 
Bible should always continue, except in what might essentially 
affect the sense, a century or two behind, for the sake of that ven- 
erable air which a shade of antiquity confers on the form, of what 
is so sacred and authoritative in substance. But I cannot allow 
that the same law is to be extended to the language of divines. 
They have no right to assume the same ground and the same dis- 
tinctions as the Bible ; they ought not to affect to keep it company. 
There is no solemn dignity in their writings, which can claim to 
be invested with a venerable peculiarity. Imitate the Bible or not, 
their composition is merely of the ordinary human quality, and 
subject to the same rules as that of their contemporaries who write 
on other subjects. And if they remain behind the advanced state 
of the classical diction, those contemporaries will not allow them to 
excuse themselves by pretending to identify themselves with the 
Bible. 

21* 



246 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

may call natural a diction ; a language which may be 
termed the day-light of thought, as compared with the 
artificial lights of the peculiar dialect. — With regard 
also to a considerable proportion of christian readers 
and hearers, I am sensible that a reformed language 
would be excessively strange to them. But may I not 
allege, without any affectation of paradox, that its being 
so strange to them would be a proof that it is quite time 
it were adopted 1 For the manner in which some of 
them would receive this altered dialect, would prove 
that the customary phraseology had scarcely given them 
any clear notions. It would be found, as I have ob- 
served before, that to them the peculiar phrases had 
been not so much the vehicles of ideas as substitutes for 
them. So undefined has been their understanding of 
the sense, while they mechanically chimed to the sound, 
that if they hear the very ideas which these phrases 
signify, or did or should signify, expressed ever so 
plainly in other language, they do not recognise them; 
and are instantly on the alert with the epithets, sound, 
orthodox, and all the watch-words of ecclesiastical 
suspicion. For such christians, the diction is the 
convenient asylum of ignorance, indolence, and pre- 
judice. 

But I have enlarged far beyond my intention, which 
was only to represent, with a short illustration, that 
this peculiar dialect is unfavourable to a cordial re- 
ception of evangelical doctrines in minds of cultivated 
taste. This I know to be a fact from many observa- 
tions in real life, especially among intellectual young 
persons, not altogether regardless of serious subjects, 
and not seduced, though not out of danger of being so, 
by the cavils against the divine authority of Christianity 
itself 

After dismissing the consideration of the language, 
which has unfortunately been made the canonical garb 
of religion, I meant to have taken a somewhat more 
general view of the accumulation of bad writing, under 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 247 

which the evangelical theology has been buried ; and 
which has contributed to bring its principles in disfa- 
vour with too many persons of accomplished mental 
habits. A large proportion of that writing may be sen- 
tenced as bad, on more accounts than merely the pecu- 
liarity of dialect. But this is an invidious topic, and I 
shall make only a few observations. 

Proofs of an intellect considerably above the com- 
mon level, with a literary execution disciplined to great 
correctness, and partaking somewhat of elegance, are 
requisite on the lowest terms of acceptance for good 
writing, with cultivated readers. Superlatively strong 
sense will indeed command attention, and even admi- 
ration, in the absence of all the graces, and notwith- 
standing much incorrectness or clumsiness in the work- 
manship of the composition. But when thus standing 
the divested and sole excellence, it must be pre-emi- 
nently conspicuous to have this power. Below this 
pitch of single or of combined merit, a book cannot 
please persons of discerning judgment and refined taste, 
though its subject be the most interesting on earth ; 
and for acceptableness, therefore, the subject is unfor- 
tunate in coming to those persons in that book. A 
disgusting cup will spoil the finest element which can 
be conveyed in it, though that were the nectar of im- 
mortality. 

Now, in this view, I suppose it will be acknowledged 
that the evangelical cause has been, on the whole, far 
from happy in its prodigious list of authors. A num- 
ber of them have displayed a high order of excellence ; 
but one -regrets as to a much greater number, that they 
did not revere the dignity of their religion too much, 
to beset and sufl^ocate it with their superfluous offerings. 
To you I need not expatiate on the character of the 
collective christian library. It will have been obvious 
to you that there is a multitude of books which form 
the perfect vulgar of religious authorship ; a vast ex- 
hibition of the most subordinate materials that can be 



248 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

called thought, in language too grovelling to be called 
style. Some of these writers seem to have concluded 
that the greatness of the subject was to do every thing, 
and that they had but to pronounce, like David, the 
name of " the Lord of Hosts," to give pebbles the force 
of darts and spears. Others appear to have really 
wanted the perception of any great difference, in point 
of excellence, between the meaner and the superior 
modes of writing. If they had read alternately Bar- 
row's or South's pages and their own, they probably 
might have doubted on which side to assign the palm. 
A number of them, citing, in a perverted sense, the 
language of St. Paul, " not with excellency of speech," 
" not with enticing words of man's wisdom," " not in 
the words which man's wisdom teacheth," expressly 
disclaim every thing that belongs to fine writing, not 
exactly as what they could not have attained, but as 
what they judge incompatible with the simplicity of 
evangelical truth and intentions. In the books of these 
several but kindred classes you are mortified to see how 
low religious thought and expression can sink; and 
you almost wonder how it was possible for the noblest 
ideas that are known to the sublimest intelligences, the 
ideas of God, of Providence, of redenlption, of eternity, 
to shine on a serious human mind without imparting 
some small occasional degree of dignity to the strain 
of thought. The indulgent feelings, which you enter- 
tain for the intellectual and literary deficiency of hum- 
ble christians in their religious communications in pri- 
vate, are with difficulty extended to those who make 
for their thoughts this demand on public attention ; it 
was necessary for them to be christians, but what made 
it their duty to become authors'? Many of the books 
are indeed successively ceasing, with the progress of 
time, to be read or known ; but the new supply con- 
tinually brought forth is so numerous, that a person 
who turns his attention to religious reading is certain 
to meet a variety of them. Now only suppose a man 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 249 

who has been conversant and enchanted with the works 
of eloquence, glowing poetry, finished elegance, or 
strong reasoning, to meet a number of these books in 
the outset of his more serious inquiries ; in what light 
would the religion of Christ appear to him, if he did 
not find some happier illustrations of it? 

There is another large class of christian books, 
which bear the marks of learning, correctness, and an 
orderly understanding ; and by a general propriety 
leave but little to be censured ; but which display no 
invention, no prominence of thought, or living vigour 
of expression ,• all is flat and dry as a plain of sand. 
It is perhaps the thousandth iteration of common- 
places, the listless attention to which is hardly an ac- 
tion of the mind ; you seem to understand it all, and 
mechanically assent while ^''ou are thinking of some- 
thing else. Though the author has a rich immeasur- 
able field of possible varieties of reflection and illustra- 
tion around him, he seems doomed to tread over again 
the narrow space of ground long since trodden to dust, 
and in all his movements appears clothed in sheets of 
lead. 

There is a smaller class that might be called 
mock-eloquent writers. These saw the eifect of bril- 
liant expression in those works of eloquence and po- 
etry where it was dictated and animated by energy of 
thought ; and very reasonably wished that christian 
sentiments might assume a language as impressive as 
any subject had ever employed to fascinate or com- 
mand. But unfortunately they forgot that eloquence 
resides essentially in the thought, and that no words 
can make genuine eloquence of that which would not 
be such in the plainest that could fully express the 
sense. Or probably, they were quite confident of the 
excellence of the thoughts that were demanding to be 
so finely sounded forth. Perhaps they concluded them 
to be vigorous and sublime from the very circumstance, 
that they disdained to show themselves in plain Ian- 



250 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

guage. The writers would be but little inclined to 
suspect of poverty or feebleness \he thoughts which 
seerhed so naturally to be assuming, in their minds and 
on their page, such a magnificent style. A gaudy verbo- 
sity is always eloquence in the opinion of him that 
writes it ; but what is the effect on the reader ?* Real 
eloquence strikes with immediate force, and leaves not 
the possibility of asking or thinking whether it be elo- 
quence; but the sounding sentences of these writers 
leave you cool enough to examine with doubtful curiosi- 
ty a language that seems threatening to move or aston- 
ish you, without actually doing so. It is something 
like the case of a false alarm of thunder ; where a sober 
man, who is not apt to startle at sounds, looks out to 
see whether it be not the rumbling of a cart. Very 
much at your ease, you contrast the pomp of the ex- 
pression with the quality of the thoughts ; and then 
read on for amusement, or cease to read from disgust. 
In a serious hour, indeed, the feelings both of amuse- 
ment and disgust give place to the regret, that it should 
be in the power of bad writing to bring the most im- 
portant subjects in danger of something worse than fail- 
ing to interest. The unpleasing effect it has on 
your own mind will lead you to apprehend its having 
a very injurious qne on many others. 

A principal device in the fabrication of this style, is, 
to multiply epithets, dry epithets, laid on the surface, 
and into virhich no vitality of the sentiment is found to 
circulate. You may take a number of the words out 
of each page, and find that the sense is neither more 
nor less for your having cleared the composition of 
these epithets of chalk of various colours, with which 
the tame thoughts had submitted to be dappled and 
made fine. 

Under the denomination of mock-eloquence may 

* I should be accurate, and say, the reader of discipHned judg- 
ment and good taste; for it is true enough that readers are not^ 
wanting, nor few, who can be taken with glare and bombast. * 



TO EVANGELXAL RELIGION. 251 

also be placed the mode of writing- which endeavours 
to excite the passions, not by presenting striking- ideas 
of the object of passion, but by the appearance of an 
emphatica] enunciation of the writer's own feelings 
concerning it. You are not made to perceive how the 
thing itself has the most interesting claims on your 
heart ; but are required to be affected in mere sympa- 
thy with the author, who attempts your feelings by 
frequent exclamations, and perhaps by an incessant 
application to his fellow-mortals, or to their Redeemer, 
of all the appellations and epithets of passion, and some- 
times of a kind of passion not appropriate to the object. 
To this last great Object, especially, such forms of ex- 
pression are occasionally applied, as must excite a 
revolting emotion in a man who feels that he cannot 
meet the same being at once on terms of adoration and 
of caressing equality. 

It would be going beyond my purpose, to carry my 
remarks from the literary merits to the moral and the- 
ological characteristics, of christian books ; else a very 
strange account could be given of the injuries which 
the gospel has suffered from its friends. You might 
often meet with a systematic writer, in whose hands 
the whole wealth, and variety, and magnificence, of 
revelation, shrink into a meagre list of doctrinal points, 
and who will let no verse in the Bible tell its meaning, 
or presume to have one, till it has taken its stand by 
one of those points. You may meet with a christian 
polemic, who seems to value the arguments for evan- 
gelical truth as an assassin values his dagger, and for 
the same reason ; with a descanter on the invisible world, 
who makes you think of a popish cathedral, and from 
the vulgarity of whose illuminations you are glad to 
escape into the solemn twilight of faith ; or with a grim 
zealot for such a theory of the divine attributes and gov- 
ernment, as seems to delight in representing the Deity 
as a dreadful king of furies, whose dominion is over- 
shaded with vengeance, whose music is the cries of vie- 



252 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

timSj and whose glory requires to be illustrated by the 
ruin of his creation. 

It is quite unnecessary to say, that the list of excel- 
lent christian writers would be very considerable. But 
as to the vast mass of books that would, by the con- 
senting adjudgment of all men of liberal cultivation, re- 
main after this deduction, one cannot help deploring 
the effect which they must have had on unknown thou- 
sands of readers. It would seem beyond all question 
that books which, though even asserting the essential 
truths of Christianity, yet utterly preclude the full im- 
pression of its character ; which exhibit its claims on 
admiration and affection with insipid feebleness of sen- 
timent ; or which cramp its simple majesty into an ar- 
tificial form at once distorted and mean ; must be seri- 
ously prejudicial to the influence of this sacred subject, 
though it be admitted that many of them have some- 
times imparted a measure both of instruction and of con- 
solation. This they might do, and yet at the same 
time convey extremely contracted and inadequate ideas 
of the subject.* There are a great many of them into 
which an intelligent christian cannot look without re- 
joicing that they were not the books from which he re- 
ceived his impressions of the glory of his religion. 
There are many which nothing would induce him, 
even though he did not materially differ from them in 
the leading articles of his belief, to put into the hands of 
an inquiring young person ; which he would be sorry 
and ashamed to see on the table of an infidel ; and 



* It is true enough that on every other subject, on which a mul- 
titude of books have been w^ritten, there must have been many 
which in a Hterary sense were bad. But I cannot help thinking 
that the number coming under this description, bear a larger pro- 
portion to the excellent ones in the religious department than any 
other. One chief cause of this has been, the mistake by which 
many good men, professionally employed in religion, have deemed 
their respectable mental competence to the office of public speak- 
ing, the proof of an equal competence to a work which is subject- 
ed to much severer literary and intellectual laws. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 253 

some of which he regrets to think may still contribute 
to keep down the standard of religious taste, if I may 
so express it, among the public instructors of mankind. 
On the whole it would appear, that a profound vener- 
ation for Christianity would induce the wish, that, after 
a judicious selection of books had been made, the Chris- 
tians also had their Caliph Omar, and their General 
Amrou. 



LETTER V. 

The injurious causes which I have thus far consider- 
ed, are associated immediately with the object^ and, by 
misrepresenting it, render it less acceptable to refined 
taste ; but there are others which operate by perverting 
the very principles of this taste itself, so as to put it in 
antipathy to the religion of Christ, even though pre- 
sented in its own full and genuine character, cleared 
of all these associations. I shall remark chiefly on one 
of these causes. 

I fear it is incontrovertible, that what is denomina- 
ted Polite Literature, the grand school in which taste 
acqu»ires its laws and refined perceptions, and in which 
are formed, much more than under any higher austerer 
discipline, the moral sentiments, is, for the far greater 
part, hostile to the religion of Christ ; partly, by intro- 
ducing insensibly a certain order of opinions uncon- 
sonant, or at least not identical, with the principles of 
that religion ; and still more, by training the feelings 
to a habit alien from its spirit. And in this assertion 
I do not refer to writers palpably irreligious, who have 
laboured and intended to seduce the passions into vice, 
or the judgment into the rejection of divine truth ; but 
to the general community of those elegant and ingeni- 
ous authors who are read and admired by the christian 
22 " 



254 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

worldj held essential to a liberal education and to the 
progressive accomplishment of. the mind in subsequent 
life, and studied often without an apprehension, or even 
a thought, of their injuring the views and temper of 
spirits advancing, with the New Testament for their 
chief instructor and guide, into another world. 

It is modern literature that I have more particularly 
in view ; at the same time, it is obvious that the writ- 
ings of heathen antiquity have continued to operate till 
now, in the very presence and sight of Christianity, 
with their own proper influence, a correctly heathenish 
influence, on the minds of many who have never thought 
of denying or doubting the truth of that religion. This 
is just as if an eloquent pagan priest had been allowed 
constantly to 'accompany our Lord in his ministry, and 
had divided with him the attention and interest of his 
disciples, counteracting, of cqurse, as far as his efforts 
were successful, the doctrine and spirit of the Teacher 
from heaven.* 

The few observations which the subject may require 
to be made on ancient literature, will be directed to the 

* It is however no part of my object in these letters to remark 
on the influence, in modern times, of the fabulous religion that in- 
fested the ancient wprks of genius. That influehce is at the pres- 
ent time, I should tnink, extremely small, from the fables being so 
stale : all readers are sufficiently tired of Jupiter, Apollo, Miner- 
va, and the rest. As long however as they could be of the small- 
est service, they were piously retained by the christian poets of this 
and other countries, who are now under the necessity of seeking 
out for some other mythology, the northern or the eastern, to support 
the languishing spirit of poetry. Even the ugly pieces of wood, 
worshipped in the South Sea Islands, will probably at last receive 
names that may more commodiously hitch into verse, and be in- 
voked to adorn and sanctify the belles lettres of the next century. 
The Mexican abominations and infernalities have already received 
from us their epic tribute. The poet has no reason to fear that th6 
supply of gods may fail ; it is at the same time a pity, one thinks, 
that a creature so immense should have been placed in a world so 
small as this, where all nature, all history, all morals, all true reli- 
gion, and the whole resources of innocent fiction, are too little to 
furnish materials enough for the wants and labours of his genius. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 255 

part of it most immediately descriptive of what may be 
called human reality, representing character, sentiment, 
and action. For it will be allowed, that the purely 
speculative part of that literature has in a great mea- 
sure ceased to interfere with the intellectual discipline 
of modern times. It obtains too little attention, and 
too little deference, to contribute materially to the for- 
mation of the mental habits, which are adverse to the 
christian doctrines and spirit. Divers learned and fa- 
natical devotees to antiquity and paganism, have indeed 
made some effort to recall the long departed venera- 
tion for the dreams and subtleties of ancient philosophy. 
But they might with as good a prospect of success re- 
commend the building of temples or a pantheon, and 
the revival of the institutions of idolatrous worship. 
The greater number of intelligent, and even learned 
men, would feel but little regret in consigning the 
largest proportion of that philosophy to oblivion ; un- 
less they may be supposed to like it as heathenism more 
than they admire it as wisdom ; or unless their pride 
would wish to retain a reminiscence of it for contrast to 
their own more rational philosophizing. 

The ancient speculations of the religious order in- 
clude indeed some splendid ideas relating to a Supreme 
Being; but these ideas impart no attraction to that 
immensity of inane and fantastic follies from the chaos 
of which they stand out, as of nobler essence and or- 
igin. For the most part they probably were tradi- 
tionary remains of divine communications to man in 
the earliest ages. A few of them were, possibly, tlie 
utmost efforts of human intellect, at so«ie happy mo- 
ments excelling itself But in whatever proportions 
they be referred to the one origin or the other, they 
stand so distinguished from the accumulated multifari- 
ous vanities of pagan speculation on the subject of 
Deity, that they throw contempt on those speculations. 
They throw contempt on the greatest part of the theo- 
logical dogmas and fancies of even the very philoso 



256 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OF TASTE 

phers who would cite and applaud them. They rather 
direct our contemplation and affection toward a reli- 
gion divinely revealed, than obtain any degree of 
favour for those notions of the Divinity, which sprang 
and indefinitely multiplied from a melancholy combina- 
tion of ignorance and depraved imagination. As to 
the apparent analogy between certain particulars in the 
pagan religions, and some of the most specific articles 
of Christianity, those notions are presented in such fan- 
tastic, and varying, and often monstrous shapes, that 
they can be of no prejudice to the christian faith, either 
by pre-occupying in our minds the place of the chris- 
tian doctrines, or by indisposing us to admit them, or 
by perverting our conception of them. 

As to the ancient metaphysical speculation, whatever 
may be the tendency of metaphysical study in general, 
or of the particular systems of modern philosophers, as 
affecting the cordial and simple admission of christian 
doctrines, the ancient metaphysics may certainly be 
pronounced inoperative and harmless. If it were pos- 
sible to analyze the mass of what may be termed our 
effective literature, so as to ascertain what elements and 
interfusions in it have been of influential power, and 
in what respective proportions, in forming our habits 
of thinking and feeling, it is probable that a very small 
share would be found derived from the ideal theories 
of the old philosophers. It is probable also, that in fu- 
ture not one of a thousand men, cultivated in a respec- 
table degree, will ever take the trouble of a resolute 
and persisting effort to master those speculations. Be- 
sides the too prevailing and still increasing indisposition 
to metaphysical study in any school, there is a settled 
conviction that those speculations were baseless and 
useless, and that whoever aspires to the high and ab- 
stracted wisdom must learn it from the later philoso- 
phers. And as the only thing we can seek and value 
in pure abstracted speculations is truth, when the per- 
suasion of their truth is gone their attraction and influ- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 257 

ence are extinct. That which could please the imagi- 
nation or interest the affections, might in a considerable 
degree continue to please and interest them, though 
convicted of much fallacy. But that which is too sub- 
tile and intangible to please the imagination, loses all 
its power when it is rejected by the judgment. This 
is the predicament to which time has reduced the meta- 
physics of the old philosophers. The captivation of 
their systems seems almost as far withdrawn from us 
as the songs of their Syrens, or the enchantments of 
Medea. 

While these thin speculations have been suspended 
in air, taking all the forms and colours of clouds or rain- 
bows, meteors or fogs, the didactic morality of some of 
the ancient philosophers, faithfully keeping to the solid 
ground of human interests, has doubtless had a consid- 
erable influence on the moral sentiments of cultivated 
men, progressively on to the present time. A certain 
quality, derived from it into literature, has perpetuated 
its operation indirectly on many who are not conversant 
with it immediately at its origin. But it may have a 
considerable direct influence on those who are in ac- 
quaintance with the great primary moralists themselves. 
After a long detention among the vagaries and mon- 
sters of mythology, or a bewildered adventure in the 
tenebrious and fantastic region of ancient metaphysics, 
in chase of that truth which the pursuer sometimes 
thinks, though doubtfully, that he sees, but which still 
eludes him, the student of antiquity is gratified at meet- 
ing with a sage who leads him among interesting 
realities, and discourses to him in plain and impressive 
terms of direct instruction concerning moral principles 
and the means of happiness. And since it is necessarily 
the substantial object of this instruction to enforce 
virtue, excellence, goodness, he feels little apprehension 
of any vitiating effect on his moral sentiments. He 
entirely forgets that moral excellence, or virtue, has 
been defined and enforced by another authority : and 
22* 



258 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

that though a large portion of the scheme must be, as 
matter of practice, mainly the same in the dictates of 
that authority, and in the writings of Epictetus, or 
Cicero, or Antoninus, yet there is a specific difference 
of substance in certain particulars, and a most important 
one in the principles that constitute the general basis. 
While he is admiring the beauty of virtue as displayed 
by one accomplished moralist, and its lofty independence 
as exhibited by another, he is not admonished to sus- 
pect that any thing in their sentiments, or his animated 
coalescence with them, can be wrong. 

But the part of ancient literature which has had in- 
comparably the greatest influence on the character of 
cultivated minds, is that which has turned, if I may so 
express it, moral sentiments into real beings and inter- 
esting companions, by displaying the life and actions 
of eminent individuals. A few of the personages of 
fiction are also to be included. The captivating spirit 
of Greece and Rome dwells in the works of the biogra- 
phers ; in so much of the history as might properly be 
called biography, from its fixing the whole attention 
and interest on a few signal names ; and in the works 
of the principal poets. 

No one, I suppose, will deny, that both the characters 
and the sentiments, which are the favourites of the poet 
and the historian, become the favourites also of the 
admiring reader ; for this would be a virtual denial of 
the excellence of the performance, in point of eloquence 
or poetic spirit. It is the high test and proof of genius 
that a writer can render his subject interesting to his 
readers, not merely in a general way, but in the very 
same manner in which it interests himself. If the 
great works of antiquity had not this power, they would 
long since have ceased to charm. We could not long," 
tolerate what caused a revolting of our moral feelings, 
while it was designed to please them. But if their 
characters and sentiments really do thus fascinate the -i 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 259 

heart, how far will this influence be cc/incident with 
the spirit and with the design of Christianity 1* 

Among the poets, I shall notice only the two or three 
pre-eminent ones of the Epic class. Homer, you 
know, is the favourite of the whole civilized world ; 
and it is many centuries since there needed one addi- 
tional word of homage to the prodigious genius dis- 
played in the Iliad. The object of inquiry is, what 
kind of predisposition will be formed toward Chris- 
tianity in a young and animated spirit, that learns to 
glow with enthusiasm at the scenes created by the 
poet, and to indulge an ardent wish, which that enthu- 
siasm will probably awaken, for the possibility of emu- 
lating some of the principal characters 1 Let this 
susceptible youth, after having mingled and burned in 
imagination among heroes, whose valour and anger 
flame like Vesuvius, who wade in blood, trample on 
dying foes, and hurl defiance against earth and heaven ; 
let him be led into the company of Jesus Christ and 
his disciples, as displayed by the evangelists, with whose 
narrative, I will suppose, he is but slightly acquainted 
before. What must he, what can he, do with his 
feelings in this transition ? He will find himself flung 
as far as " from the centre to the utmost pole ;" and one 
of these two opposite exhibitions of character will in- 
evitably excite his aversion. Which of them is that 
likely to be, if he is become thoroughly possessed with 
the Homeric passions ? 

Or if, reversing the order, you will suppose a person 
to have first become profoundly interested by the New 
Testament, and to have acquired the spirit of the 

* It may be noticed here that a great part of what could be said 
on heathen Uterature as opposed to the reUgion of Christ,, must 
necessarily refer to the peculiar moral spirit of that religion. It 
would border on the ridiculous to represent the martial enthusiasm 
of ancient historians and poets as counteracting the peculiar doc- 
trines of the gospel, meaning by the term those dictates of truth 
that do not directly involve moral distinctions. 



260 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OF TASTE 

Saviour of the world, while studying the evangelical 
history ; with what sentiments will he come forth from 
conversing with heavenly mildness, weeping benevo- 
lence, sacred purity, and the eloquence of divine wis- 
dom, to enter into a scene of such actions and charac- 
ters, and to hear such maxims of merit and glory^ as 
those of Homer? He would be still more confounded 
by the transition, had it been possible for him to have 
entirely escaped that deep depravation of feeling which 
can think of crimes and miseries with little emotion, 
and which we have all acquired from viewing the pro- 
minent portion of the world's history as composed of 
scarcely any thing else. He would find the mightiest 
strain of poetry employed to represent ferocious courage 
as the greatest of virtueSj and those who do not possess 
it as worthy of their fate, to be trodden in the dust. 
He will be taught, at least it will not be the fault of the 
poet, if he be not taught, to forgive a heroic spirit for 
finding the sweetest luxury in insulting dying pangs, 
and imagining the tears and despair of distant relations. 
He will be incessantly called upon to worship revenge, 
the real divinity of the Iliad, in comparison of which 
the Thunderer of Olympus is but a subaltern pre- 
tender to power. He will be. taught that the most 
glorious and enviable life is that, to which the greatest 
number of other lives are made a sacrifice ; and that it 
is noble in a hero to prefer even a short life attended 
by this felicity, to a long one which should permit a 
longer life also to others. The terrible Achilles, a 
being whom, if he had really existed, it had been worth 
a temporary league of the tribes then called nations to 
reduce to the quietness of a dungeon or a tomb, is 
rendered interesting even amidst the horrors of revenge 
and destruction, by the intensity of his affection for 
his friend, by the melancholy with which he appears in 
the funeral scene of that friend, by one momentary 
instance of compassion, and by his solemn references 
to his own impending and inevitable doom. A reader 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 261 

who has even passed beyond the juvenile ardour of life, 
feels himself interested, in a manner that excites at in- 
tervals his own surprise, in the fate of this fell exter- 
minator ; and he wonders, and he wishes to doubt, 
whether the moral that he is learning, be, after all, ex- 
actly no other than that the grandest employment of a 
great spirit is the destruction of human creatures, so 
long as revenge, ambition, or even caprice, may choose 
to regard them under an artificial distinction, and call 
them enemies. But this, my dear friend, is the real and 
effective moral of the Ihad, after all that critics have so 
gravely written about lessons of union, or any other 
subordinate moral instructions, which they discover or 
imagine in the work. Who but critics ever thought or 
cared about any such drowsy lessons ? Whatever is 
the chief and grand impression made by the whole work 
on the ardent minds which are most susceptible of the 
influence of poetry, that shows the real moral ; and 
Alexander, and Charles XII. through the medium of 
" Macedonia's madman," correctly received the genuine 
inspiration. 

If it be said, that such works stand on the same 
ground, except as to the reality or accuracy of the 
facts, with an eloquent history, which simply exhibits 
the actions and characters, I deny the assertion. The 
actions and characters are presented in a manner w^hich 
prevents their just impression, and empowers them to 
make an opposite one. A transforming magic of genius 
displays a number of atrocious savages in a hideous 
slaughter-house of men, as demi-gods in a temple of 
glory. No doubt an eloquent history might be so 
written as to give the same aspect to such men, and 
such operations ; but that history would deserve to be 
committed to the flames. A history that should give 
a faithful representation of miseries and slaughter, 
would set no one, who had not attained the last depra- 
vation, on fire to imitate the principal actors. It would 
excite in a degree the same emotion as the sight of a 



262 ON THE AVEHSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

field of dead and dying men after a battle is over ; a 
sight at which the soul would shudder and revolt, and 
earnestly wish that this might be the last time the sun 
should behold such a spectacle; but the tendency of 
the Homeric poetry, and of a great part of epic poetry 
in general, is to insinuate the glory of repeating such a 
tragedy. I therefore ask again, how it would be pos- 
sible for a man whose mind was first completely assimi- 
lated to the spirit. of Jesus Christ, to read such a work 
without a most vivid antipathy to what he perceived 
to be the moral spirit of the poet ? And if it were not 
too strange a supposition, that the most characteristic 
parts of the Iliad had been read in the presence and hear- 
ing of our Lord, and by a person animated by a fervid 
sympathy with the work — do you not instantly imagine 
Him expressing the most emphatical condemnation 1 
Would not the reader have been made to know that in 
the spirit of that book he could never become a disciple 
and a friend of the Messiah ?• But then, if he believed 
this declaration, and were serious enough to care about 
being the disciple and friend of the Messiah, would he 
not have deemed himself extremely unfortunate to 
have been seduced, through the pleasures of taste and 
imagination, into habits of feeling which rendered it 
impossible, till their predominance should be destroyed, 
for him to receive the only true religion, and the only 
Redeemer of the world 7 To show how impossible it 
would be, I wish I may be pardoned for making 
another strange, and indeed a most monstrous supposi- 
tion, namely, that Achilles, Diomede, Ulysses, and 
Ajax had been real persons, living in the time of our 
Lord, and had become his disciples, and yet, (except- 
ing the mere exchange of the notions of mythology 
for christian opinions,) had retained entire the state of 
mind with which their poet has exhibited them. 
It is instantly perceived that Satan, Beelzebub, and 
Moloch might as consistently have been retained in 
heaven. But here the question comes to a point : if 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 263 

these great examples of glorious character pretending 
to coalesce with the transcendent Sovereign of virtues, 
would have been probably the most enormous incon- 
gruity existing, or that ever had existed, in the crea- 
tion, what harmony can there be between a man who 
has acquired a considerable degree of congeniality with 
the spirit of these heroes, and that paramount Teacher 
and Pattern of excellence ? And who will assure me 
that the enthusiast for heroic poetry does not acquire a 
degree of this congeniality ? But unless I can be so 
assured, I necessarily persist in asserting the noxious- 
ness of such poetry. 

Yet the work of Homer is, notwithstanding, the 
book which christian poets have translated, which 
christian divines have edited and commented on with 
pride, at which christian ladies have been delighted to 
see their sons kindle into rapture, and which forms an 
essential part of the course of a liberal education over 
all those countries on which the gospel shines. And 
who can tell how much that passion for war which, 
from the universality of its prevalence, might seem in- 
separable from the nature of man. may have been, in 
the civilized world, reinforced by the enthusiastic ad- 
miration with which young men have read Homer, 
and similar poets, whose genius transforms what is, 
and ought always to appear purely horrid, to an aspect 
of grandeur? Should it be asked, What ought to be 
the practical consequences of such observations? I 
may surely answer that I cannot justly be required to 
assign that consequence. I cannot be required to do 
more than exhibit in a simple light an important point 
af truth. If such works do really impart their own 
spirit to the mind of an admiring reader, and if this 
spirit be totally hostile to that of Christianity, and if 
Christianity ought really and in good faith to be the 
supreme regent of all moral feeling, then it is evident 
that the Illiad, and all books which combine the same 
[tendency with great poetical excellence, are among the 



264 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

most mischievous things on earth. There is but little 
satisfaction, certainly, in illustrating the operation of 
evils without proposing any adequate method of con- 
tending with them. But in the present case, I really 
do not see what a serious observer of the character of 
mankind can offer. To wish that the works of Homer, 
and some other great authors of antiquity, should cease 
to be read, is just as vain as to wish they had never 
been written. As to the far greater number of readers, 
it were equally in vain to wish that pure christian sen- 
timents might be sufficiently recollected, and loved, to 
accompany the study, and constantly prevent the in- 
jurious impression, of the works of pagan genius. 
The few maxims of Christianity to which the student 
may have assented without thought, and for which he 
has but little veneration, will but feebly oppose the in- 
fluence ; the spirit of Homer will vanquish as irresis- 
tibly as his Achilles vanquished. It is also most per- 
fectly true, that as long as pride, ambition, and vindic- 
tiveness, hold so mighty a prevalence in the character 
and in the nature of our species, they would still am- 
ply display themselves, though the stimulus of heroic 
poetry were withdrawn, by the annihilation "of all those 
works which have invested the worst passions and the 
worst actions with a glare of grandeur. With or 
without the infections of heroic poetry, men and na- 
tions will continue to commit offences against one an- 
other, and to avenge them ; to assume an arrogant pre- 
cedence, and account it and laud it as noble spirit ; to 
celebrate their deeds of destruction, and call them 
glory , to idolize the men who possess, and can infuse, 
the greatest share of an infernal fire ; to set at nought 
all principles of virtue and religion in favour of some' 
thoughtless vicious mortal who consigns himself in thfr 
same achievement to fame and perdition ; to vaunt in* 
triumphal entries, or funeral pomps, or bombastic odes, 
or strings of scalps, how far human skill and valoui 
can surpass the powers of famine and pestilence ; men 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 265 

and nations will continue thus to act, till a mightier in- 
tervention from heaven shall establish the dominion of 
Christianity. In that better season, perhaps the great 
works of ancient genius will be read in such a disposi- 
tion of miad as can receive, the intellectual improve- 
ment derivable from them, and at the same time as lit- 
tle coincide or be infected with their moral spirit, as in 
the present age we venerate their mytholo^-ical van- 
ities. 

In the mean time, one cannot believe that any man, 
who seriously reflects how absolutely the religion of 
Christ claims a conformity of his whole nature, will 
without regret feel himself animated with a class of 
sentiments, of which the habitual prevalence would be 
the total preclusion of Christianity. 

And it seems to show how little this religion is 
really understood, or even considered, in any of the 
countries denominated christian, that so many who 
profess to adopt it never once thought of guarding their 
own minds, and those of their children, against the 
eloquent seductions of so opposite a spirit. Probably 
they would be more intelligent and vigilant, if any 
other interest than that of their professed religion were 
endangered. But a thing which injures them only in 
that concern, is sure to meet with all possible indul- 
gence . 

With respect to religious parents and preceptors, 
whose children and pupils are to receive that liberal 
education which must inevitably include the study of 
these great works, it will be for them to accompany 
the youthful readers throughout, with an effort to show 
them, in the most pointed manner, the inconsistency of 
many of the sentiments, both with moral rectitude in 
general, and with the special dictates of Christianity. 
And in order to give the requisite force to those dic- 
tates, it will be an important duty to illustrate to them 
the amiable tendency, and to prove the awful authority, 
of this dispensation of religion. This careful effort 
23 



266 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

will often but partially prevent the mischief ; but it 
seems to be all that can be done. 

Virgil's work is a kind of lunar reflection of the ar- 
dent effulgence of Homer ; surrounded, if I may ex- 
tend the figure, -with a beautiful halo of elegance and 
tenderness. So much more refined an order of senti- 
ment might have rendered the heroic character far 
more attractive, to a mind that can soften as well as 
glow, if there had actually been a hero in the poem. 
But none of the personages intended for heroes take 
hold enough of the reader's feelings to assimilate them 
in moral temper. No fiction or history of human char- 
acters and actions will ever powerfully transfuse its 
spirit, without some one or some very few individuals 
of signal peculiarity or greatness, to concentrate and 
embody the whole energy of the work. There would 
be no danger therefore of any one's becoming an 
idolater of the god of war through the inspiration of 
the ^neid, even if a larger proportion of it had re- 
sounded with martial enterprise. Perhaps the chief 
counteraction to christian sentiments which I should 
apprehend to an opening susceptible mind, would be a 
depravation of its ideas concerning the other world, 
from the picturesque scenery which Virgil has opened 
to his hero in the regions of the dead, and the imposing 
images with which he has shaded the avenue to them. 
Perhaps also the affecting sentiments which precede 
the death of Dido, might tend to lessen, especially in a 
pensive mind, the horror of that impiety which would 
throw back with violence the possession of life, as if in 
reproach to its great Author, for having suffered that 
there should be unhappiness in a world wherethere is 
sin. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 267 



LETTER VI. 

In naming Lucan, I am not unaware that an avowal 
of high admiration may hazard all credit for correct 
discernment. I must, however, confess that, in spite of 
his rhetorical ostentation, and all the offences of a too 
inflated style, he does in my apprehension greatly sur- 
pass all the other ancient poets in direct force of the 
ethical spirit ; and that he would have a stronger influ- 
ence to seduce my feelings, in respect to moral great- 
ness, into a discordance from christian principles. His 
leading characters are widely different from those of 
Homer, and of an eminently superior order. The 
mighty genius of Homer appeared and departed in a 
rude age of the human mind, a stranger to the intellec- 
tual enlargement which would have enabled him to 
combine in his heroes the dignity of thought, instead 
of mere physical force, with the energy of passion. 
For want of this, they are great heroes without being 
great men. They appear to you only as tremendous 
fighting and destroying animals ; a kind of human 
mammoths. The prowess of personal conflict is all 
they can understand and admire, and in their warfare 
their minds never reach to any of the sublimer views 
and results even of war ; their chief and final object 
seems to be the mere savage glory of fighting, and the 
annihilation of their enemies. When the heroes of 
Lucan, both the depraved and the nobler class, are 
employed in war, it seems but a small part of what 
they can do, and what they intend ; they have always 
something further and greater in view than to evince 
their valour, or to riot in the vengeance of victory. 
Ambition as exhibited in Pompey and Csesar seems 
almost to become a grand passion, when compared to 
the contracted and ferocious aim of Homer's chiefs; 
while this passion, even thus elevated, serves to exalt 



268 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OP TASTE 

by comparison the far different and nobler sentiments 
and objects of Cato and Brutus. The contempt of death, 
which in the heroes of the Iliad often seems like an 
incapacity or an oblivion of thought, is in Lucan's 
favourite characters the result, or at least the associate, 
of high philosophic spirit ; and this strongly contrasts 
their courage with that of Homer's warriors, which 
is, (according indeed to his own frequent similes,) the 
reckless daring of wild beasts. Lucan sublimates 
martial into moral grandeur. Even if you could de- 
duct from his great men all that which forms the speci- 
fic martial display of the hero, you would find their 
greatness little diminished ; they would still retain their 
commanding and interesting aspect. The better class 
of them, amidst war itself, hate and deplore the spirit 
and destructive exploits of war. They are indignant 
at the vices of mankind for compelling their virtue into 
a career in which such sanguinary glories can be ac- 
quired. And while they deem it their duty to exert 
their courage in conflict for a just cause, they regard 
camps and battles as vulgar things, from which their 
thoughts often turn away into a train of solemn and 
presaging reflections, in which they approach sometimes 
the most elevated sublimity. You have a more abso- 
lute impression of grandeur from a speech of Cato, than 
from all the mighty exploits that epic poetry ever bla- 
zoned. The eloquence of Lucan's moral heroes does 
not consist in images of triumphs and conquests, but in 
reflections on virtue, sufferings, destiny, and death ; 
and the sentiments expressed in his own name have 
often a melancholy tinge which renders them irresisti- 
bly interesting. He might seem to have felt a presage, 
while musing on the last of the Romans, that their 
poet was soon to follow them. The reader becomes 
devoted both to the poet, and to these illustrious men ; 
but, under the influence of this attachment, he adopts 
all their sentiments, and exults in the sympathy ; for- 
getting, or unwilhng, to reflect, whether this state of 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION, 269 

feeling-, be concordant with the religion of Christ, and 
with the spirit of the apostles and martyrs. The most 
captivating of Lucan's sentiments, to a mind enamoured 
olf pensive sublimity, are those concerning death. I 
remember the very principle which I would wish to 
inculcate, that is, the necessity that a believer of the 
gospel should preserve the christian ten our of feeling 
predominant in his mind, and clear of incongruous 
mixture, having struck me with great force amidst the 
enthusiasm with which I read many times over the 
memorable account of Vulteius, the speech by which 
he inspired his gallant band with a passion for death, 
and the reflections on death with which the poet closes 
the episode. I said to myself, at the suggestion of 
conscience. What are these sentiments with which 1 am 
glowing? Are these the just ideas of death? Are 
they such as were taught by the Divine Author of our 
religion ? Is this the spirit with which St. Paul ap- 
proached his last hour 1 And I felt a painful collision 
between this reflection and the passion inspired by the 
poet. I perceived clearly that the kind of interest 
which I felt was no less than a real adoption, for the 
time, of the ve'ry same sentiments with which he was 
animated. 

The epic poetry has been selected for the more 
pointed application of ^py remarks, from the belief 
that it has had a much greater influence on the moral 
sentiments of succeeding ages than all the other poetry 
of antiquity, by means of its impressive display of in- 
dividual great characters. And it will be admitted that 
the moral spirit of the epic poets, taken together, is as 
little in opposition to the christian theory of moral 
sentiments as that of the collective poetry of other 
kinds. Some just and fine sentiments to be found in 
the Greek tragedies are in the tone of the best of the 
pagan didactic moralists. And they infuse themselves 
more intimately into our minds when thus coming 
warm in the course of passion and action, and speaking 
23* 



270 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

to US with the emphasis imparted by affecting and 
dreadful events ; but still are of less vivid and pene- 
trating charm, than as emanating from the insulated 
magnificence of such striking and sublime individual 
characters as those of epic poetry. The mind of the 
reader does not, from those dramatic scenes, retain for 
months and years an animated recollection of some 
personage whose name constantly recalls the sentiments 
which he uttered, or with which his conduct inspired 
us The Greek drama is extremely deficient in both 
grand and interesting characters, in any sense of the 
epithets that should imply an imposing or a captivating 
moral power. Much the greatest number of the per- 
sons and personages brought on the scene are such as 
we care nothing about, otherwise than merely on ac- 
count of the circumstances in which we see them act- 
ing or suffering. With few exceptions they come on 
the stage, and go off, without possessing us with either 
admiration or affection. When therefore the maxims 
or reflections which we hear from them have an im- 
pressive effect, it is less from any commanding quality 
in the persons, than from the striking, and sometimes 
portentous and fearful situations, that the sentiments 
have their pathos. There are a few characters of 
greater power over our respect and our sympathies, 
who draw us, by virtue of .personal qualities, into a 
willing communion with them, at times, in moral prin- 
ciples and emotions. We are relieved and gratified, 
after passing through so much wickedness, misfortune, 
and inane common-place moralizing, to be greeted 
with fine expressions of justice, generosity, and fidelity 
to a worthy purpose, by persons whom we can regard 
as living realizations of such virtues. It is like finding 
among barbarous nations, (as sometimes happens,) 
some individual or two eminently and unaccountably 
above the level of their tribe, whose intelligence and 
virtues have, by the contrast and the surprise, a stronger 
attraction than similar qualities meeting us in a culti- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 271 

vated community. But the delight sometimes kindled 
by sentiments of magnanimous or gentle virtue, is ex- 
ceedingly repressed, and often quenched, in the reader 
of the Greek drama, by the incessant intrusion of a 
hideous moral barbarism ; especially by the implica- 
tion of the morality with an execrable mythology. 
There is an odious interference of " the gods," some- 
times by their dissensions with one another perplexing 
and confounding the rules of human obligation ; often 
contravening the best intentions and efforts ; depriving 
virtue of all confidence and resource ; despising, frus- 
trating, or punishing it ; turning its exertions and sac- 
rifices to vanity or disaster ; and yet to be the objects 
of devout homage, a homage paid with intermingled 
complaints and reproaches, extorted from defeated or 
suffering virtue, which is trying to be better than the 
gods. Nothing can be more intensely dreary than the 
moral economy as represented in much of that drama. 
Let any one contemplate it as displayed for example, in 
the Prometheus Chained, or the whole stories of QEdi- 
pus and Orestes. On the whole I have conceded much 
in saying, that a small portion of the morality of that 
drama may have a place with that of the best of the 
didactic moralists. 

I shall not dwell long on the biography and history, 
since it will be allowed^that their influence is very 
nearly coincident with that of the epic poetry. The 
work of Plutarch, the chief of the biographers, (a work 
so necessary, it would seem, to the consolations of a 
christian, that I have read of some learned man de- 
claring, and without any avowed rejection of the Bible, 
that if he were to be cast on a desert island, and could 
have one book, and but one, it should be this,) the work 
of Plutarch delineates a greatness partly of the same 
character as that celebrated by Homer, and partly of 
the more dignified and intellectual kind which is so 
commanding in the great men of Lucan, several of 
whom indeed are the subjects also of the biographer. 



272 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

Various distinctions might, no doubt, be remarked in 
the impression made by great characters as illustrated 
in poetry, and as exposed in the plainness of historical 
record : but I am persuaded that the habits of feeling 
which will grow from admiring the one or the other, 
will be substantially the same as affecting the temper 
of the mind in regard to Christianity. 

A number of the men exhibited by the biographers 
and historians, rose so eminently above the general 
character of the human race, that their names have 
become inseparably associated with our ideas of moral 
greatness. A thoughtful student of antiquity enters 
this majestic company with an impression of mystical 
awfulness, resembling that of Ezekiel in his vision. 
In this select and revered assembly we include only 
those who were distinguished by elevated virtue, as 
well as powerful talents and memorable actions. Un- 
doubtedly the magnificent powers and energy without 
moral excellence, so often displayed on the field of 
ancient history, compel a kind of prostration of the 
soul in the presence of men, whose surpassing achieve- 
ments seem to silence for a while, and but for a while, 
the sense of justice which must execrate their ambition 
and their crimes ; but where greatness of mind seems 
but secondary to greatness of virtue, as in the examples 
of Phocion, Epaminondas, Aristides, Timoleon, Dion, 
Cimon, and several more, the heart applauds itself for 
feeling an irresistible captivation. This number indeed 
is small, compared with the whole galaxy of renowned 
names ; but it is large enough to fill the mind, and to 
give as venerable an impression of pagan greatness, as 
if none of its examples had been the heroes whose 
fierce brilliance lightens through the blackness of their 
depravity ; or the legislators, orators, and philosophers, 
whose wisdom was degraded by imposture, venality, or 
vanity. 

A most impressive part of the influence of ancient 
character on modern feelings, is derived from the 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 273 

accounts of two or three of the greatest philosophers, 
whose virtue, protesting and solitary in the times in 
which they lived, whose intense devotedness in the 
pursuit of wisdom, and whose occasional sublime 
glimpses of apprehension, received from beyond the 
sphere of error in which they were enclosed and be- 
nighted, present them to the mind with something like 
the venerableness of the prophets of God. Among 
the exhibitions of this kind, it is unnecessary to say 
that Xenophon's Memoir of Socrates stands unrivalled 
and above comparison. 

Sanguine spirits without number have probably been 
influenced in modern times by the ancient history of 
mere heroes ; but persons of a reflective disposition 
have been incomparably more affected by the con- 
templation of those men whose combination of mental 
power with illustrious virtue constitutes the supreme 
glory of heathen antiquity. And why do I deem the 
admiration of this noble display of moral excellence 
pernicious to these reflective minds, in relation to the 
religion of Christ ? For the simplest possible reason ; 
because the principles of that excellence are not iden- 
tical with the principles of this religion ; as I believe 
every serious and self-observant man who has been 
attentive to them both, will have verified in his own 
experience. He has felt the animation which pervaded 
his soul, in musing on the virtues, the sentiments, and 
the great actions, of these dignified men, suddenly ex- 
piring, when he has attempted to prolong or transfer it 
to the virtues, sentiments, and actions, of the apostles 
of Jesus Christ. Sometimes he has, with mixed wonder 
and indignation, remonstrated with his own feelings, 
and has said, I know there is the highest excellence in 
the religion of the Messiah, and in the characters of 
his most magnanimous followers ; and surely it is ex- 
cellence also that attracts me to those other illustrious 
men ; why then cannot I take a full delightful interest 
in them both ? But it is in vain ; he finds this amphi- 



274 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

bious devotion impossible. And he will always find it 
so ; for, antecedently to experience, it would be obvious 
that the order of sentiments which animated the one 
form of excellence, is extremely diverse from that which 
is the vitality of the other. If the whole system of a 
christian's sentiments is required to be exactly adjusted 
to the economy of redemption, they must be widely 
different from those of the men, however wise or vir- 
tuous, who never thought or heard of the Saviour of 
the world ; else where is the peculiarity or importance 
of this new dispensation, which does however both 
avow and manifest a most signal peculiarity, and with 
which heaven has connected the signs and declarations 
of infinite importance 1 If, again, a christian's grand 
object and solicitude is to please God, this must con- 
stitute his moral excellence, (even though the facts^ the 
mere actions were the same,) of a very different nature 
from that of the men who had not in firm faith any 
god that they cared to please, and whose highest glory 
it might possibly become, that they boldly differed from 
their deities ; as Lucan undoubtedly intended it as the 
most emphatical applause of Cato, that he was the 
inflexible patron and hero of the cause which was the 
aversion of the gods.* If humility is required as a 
characteristic of a christian's mind, he is here again 
placed in a state of contrariety to that self-idolatry, the 
love of glory which accompanied, and was applauded 
as a virtue while it accompanied, almost all the moral 
greatness of the heathens. If a christian lives for 
eternity, and advances towards death with the certain 
expectation of judgment, and of a new and awful world, 
how different must be the essential quality of his serious 
sentiments, as partly created and wholly pervaded, by 
this mighty anticipation, from the order of feeling of 
the virtuous heathens, who had no positive or sublime 
expectations beyond death. The interior essences, if 



* Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catom. 



i 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 275 

I may so speak, of the two kinds of excellence, sus- 
tained or produced by these two systems or principles, 
are so different, that they will hardly be more con- 
vertible or compatible in the same mind than even ex- 
cellence and turpitude. — Now it appears to me that the 
enthusiasm with which a mind of deep and thoughtful 
sensibility dwells on the history of sages, virtuous legis- 
lators, and the worthiest class of heroes of heathen 
antiquity, will be found to beguile that mind into an 
order of sentiments congenial with theirs, and therefore 
thus seriously different from the spirit and principles 
of Christianity.* It is not exactly that the judgment 
admits distinct pagan propositions, but the heart insen- 
sibly acquires an unison with many of the sentiments 
which imply those propositions, and are wrong unless 
those propositions be right. It forgets that a different 
state of feeling, corresponding to a greatly different 
scheme of principles, is appointed by the Sovereign 
Judge of all things as (with relation to us) an indis- 
pensable preparation for entering the eternal paradise ;t 
and that now, no moral distinctions, however splendid, 
are excellence in his sight, if not conformed to his 
declared standard. It slides into a persuasion that, 
under any economy, to be like one of those heathen 
examples should be a competent fitness for any world 
to which good spirits are to be assigned. The devoted 

* Should it be pretended that, in admiring pagan excellence, the 
mind takes the mere faA:ts of that excellence, separately from the 
principles, and as far as they are identical with the facts of chris- 
tian excellence, and then, connecting christian principles with 
them, converts the whole ideally into a christian character before 
it cordially admires, I appeal to experience that this is not true. 
If it were, the mind would be. able to turn with full complacency 
from an affectionate admiration of an illustrious heathen, to ad- 
mire, in the same train of feeling- and with still warmer emotion, 
the excellence of St. Paul ; which is not the fact. 

t I hope none of these observations will be understood to 
insinuate the impossibility of the future happiness of virtuous 
heathens. But a question on that subject would here be out of 
place. 



276 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

admirer contemplates them as the most enviable spe 
cimens of his nature, and almost wishes he could have 
been one of them ; without reflecting- that this would 
probab]^/^ have been under the condition, among- many- 
other circumstances, of adoring Jupiter, Bacchus, or 
iEsculapius, and yet despising the deities that he adored; 
and under the condition of being a stranger to the Son 
of God. and to all that he has disclosed and accom- 
plished for the felicity of our race. It would even 
throw an ungracious chill on his ardour, if an evan- 
gelical monitor should whisper, " Remember Jesus 
Christ," and express' his regret that these illustrious 
men could not have been privileged to be elevated into 
christians. If precisely the word " elevated " were 
used, the admonished person might have a feeling, at 
the instant, as if it were not the right word. But this 
state of mind is no less in effect than hostility to the 
gospel, which these feelings are practically pronouncing 
to be at least unnecessary ; and therefore that noblest 
part of ancient literature which tends to produce it, is 
inexpressibly injurious. It had been happy for many 
cultivated and aspiring minds, if the men whose cha- 
racters are the moral magnificence of the classical 
history, had been such atrocious villains, that their 
names could not have been recollected without ex- 
ecration. Nothing can be more disastrous than to be 
led astray by eminent virtue and intelligence, which 
can give a sense of congeniality with grandeur in the 
deviation. 

It will require a very afTecting impression of the 
christian truth, a decided conception of the christian 
character, and a habit of thinking with sympathetic 
admiration of the most elevated class of christians, to ; 
preserve the genuine evangelical spirit amidst this ideal 
society w^ith personages who might pardonably have: 
been estReraed of the noblest form of human nature, if \ 
a revelation had not been received from heaven. Some; 
views of this excellence it were in vain for a christian 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 277 

to forbid himself to admire ; but he must learn to ad- 
mire under a discriminative restriction, else the emotion 
involves a desertion of his cause. He must learn to as- 
sign these men in thought to another sphere, and to 
regard them as beings under a different economy with 
which our relations are dissolved ; as wonderful exam- 
ples of a certain imperfect kind of moral greatness, 
formed on a model foreign to true religion, and which 
is crumbled to dust and given to the winds. — At the 
same time, he may Vv^ell, while beholding some of these 
men, deplore that if so much excellence could be form- 
ed on such a model, the sacred system which gives the 
acknowledged exemplar for his own character should 
not have far more assimilated him to heaven. — So much 
for the effect of the most interesting part of ancient 
literature. 

In the next letter I shall make some observations on 
modern polite literature, in application of the same rule 
of judgment. Many of them must unavoidably be 
very analogous to those already made ; since the 
greatest number of the modern fine writers acquired 
much of the character of their minds from those of the 
ancient world. Probably indeed the ancients have ex- 
erted^^a much more extensive influence in modern 
times by means of the modern writers to whom they 
have communicated their moral spirit, than immediate- 
ly by their own works. 



LETTER VII. 

To a man who had long observed the influences 

which tyrannize over human passions and opinions, it 

' would not perhaps have appeared strange, that when 

the Grand Renovator came on earth, and during the 

succeeding ages, a number of the men whose superior 

24 

I 



278 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

talents were to carry on the course of literature, and 
promote and guide the progress of the human mind, 
should reject his religion. These I have placed out 
of the question, as it is not my object to show the in- 
juries done to Christianity by its avowed enemies. But 
it might have been expected, that all the intelligent 
men, from that hour to the end of time, who should 
really admit the truth of this religion, would perceive 
the sovereignty and universality of its claims, feel that 
every thing unconsonant with it ought instantly to 
vanish from the whole system of approved sentiments 
and the whole school of literature, and to keep as 
clearly aloof as the Israelites from the boundary that 
guarded the sanctity of Mount Sinai, It might have 
been presumed, that all principles which the new dis- 
pensation rendered obsolete, or declared or implied to 
be wrong, should no more be regarded as belonging to 
the system of principles to be henceforward received 
and taught, than dead bodies in their graves belong to 
the raee of living men. To retain or recall them, 
would therefore be as offensive to the judgment, as to 
take up these bodies and place them in the paths of 
men would be offensive to the senses ; and as ab- 
surd as the practice of the ancient Egyptians, ^l^ho 
made their embalmed ancestors their companions at 
their festivals. It might have been supposed, that 
whatever Christianity had actually substituted, abol- 
ished, or supplied, would therefore be practically re- 
garded by these believers of it as substituted, abolished, 
or supplied ; and that they would, in all their writings, 
be at least as careful of their fidelity in this great arti- 
cle, as an adherent to the Newtonian philosophy would 
be certain to exclude, from his scientific discourse, all 
notions that seriously implied the Ptolemaic or the 
Tychonic system to be true. Necessarily, a number 
of these literary believers would write on subjects so 
completely foreign to what comes within the cognizance 
of Christianity, that a pure neutrality, which should 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 279 

avoid all interference with it, would be all that could 
be claimed from them in its behalf; though at the 
same time, one should feel some degree of regret to see 
a man of enlarged mind exhausting his abihty and his 
life on these foreign subjects, without devoting some 
short interval to the service of that which he believes 
to be of far surpassing moment.* 

But the great number who chose to write on sub- 
jects that come within the relations of the christian 
system, as on the various views of morals, the distinc- 
tions and judgments of human character, and the the- 
ory of happiness, with almost unavoidable references 
sometimes to our connexion with Deity, to death, and 
to a future state, ought to have written every page un- 
der the recollection, that these subjects are not left free 
for careless or arbitrary sentiment since the time that 
" God has spoken to us by his Son ;" and that the 
finest composition would be only so much eloquent im- 
piety, if essentially discordant with the dictates of the 
New Testament. Had this been a habitual and in- 
fluential recollection with the admired writers of the 
christian world, an ingenuous mind might have been 

* I could not help feeling a degree of this regret in reading 
lately the memoirs of the admirable and estimable Sir William 
Jones. Some of his researches in Asia have incidentally served 
the cause of religion ; but did he think that nothing more remain- 
ed possible to be done in service to Christianity, that his accom- 
plished mind was left at leisure for hymns to the Hindoo gods 1 
Was not this even a violation of the neutrality, and an offence, 
not only against the gospel, but against theisria itself? I know 
what may be said about personif (Cation, license of poetry, and so 
on; but should not a worshipper of God hold himself under a 
solemn obligation to abjure all tolerance of even poetical figures 
that can seriously seem, in any way whatever, to recognise the 
pagan divinities — or abominations, as the prophets of Jehovah 
would have called them '? What would Elijah have said to such an 
employment of talents in his time 1 It would have availed little 
to have told him that these divinities were only personifications 
(with their appropriate representative idols) of objects in nature, 
of elements, or of abstractions. He would have sternly replied, 
And was not Baal, whose prophets I destroyed, the same 1 



280 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

conversant alternately with their works and those of 
evangelists and apostles, without being- confounded in 
the conflict of antipathy between the inspirations of 
genius and the inspirations of heaven. 

I confine my view chiefly to the elegant literature 
of our own country. And there is a presumption in 
its favour, independently of actual comparison, that it is 
much less excepdonable than the belles lettres of the 
other countries of modern Europe ; for this plain rea- 
son, that the extended prevalence of the happy light of 
the Reformation through almost the whole period of 
the production of our works of genius and taste, must 
necessarily, by presenting the religion of Christ in an 
aspect more true to its genuine dignity, have compelled 
from the intellectual men who did not deny its truth, 
and could not be entirely ignorant of its most essential 
properties, a kind and degree of respect which would 
not be felt by the same order of men in popish coun- 
tries, whose belief in Christianity was no more than a 
deference to the authority of the church, and whose oc- 
casional allusions or testimonies to it would recognise 
it in no higher character than that in which it appears 
as degraded into a superstition ; so that there would be 
only a fallacious or equivocal glimmer of Christian- 
ity thrown occasionally on their pages of moral senti- 
ment. 

In this assumption in favour of our polite literature 
against that of the popish countries, I set out of view, 
on both sides, that portion which is of directly immoral 
or infidel tendency ; since it is not at all my object to 
comment on the antichristian effect of the palpably 
vicious part of our literature, but to indicate a certain 
moral and religious insalubrity in much of that which, 
in general account, is for the most part tolerably accor- 
dant, and in many instances actively subservient, to 
truth and virtue. 

Going over from the vicious and irreligious to the 
directly opposite quarter, neither do I include in the 



to EVANGELICAL KELIGIOX. 281 

literature on which I am animadverting, any cJass of 
authors formerly theological, not even the most admired 
sermon writers in our language ; because it is probable 
that works specifically theotgical have not been ad- 
mitted to constitute more than a small part of that 
school of thinking and taste, in which the generality 
of cultivated men have acqmred the moral habitude of 
their minds. That school is composed of poets, moral 
philosophers, historians, essajdsts, and you may add the 
writers of fiction. If the great majority of these authors 
have injured, and still injure their pupils in the most 
important of all their interests, it is a very serious con- 
sideration, both in respect to the accountableness of the 
authors, and the final effect on their pupils. I main- 
tain that the}^ are guilty of this injury. 

On so wide a field, my dear friend, it would be in 
vain to attempt making particular references and selec- 
tions to verify all these remarks. 1 must appeal for 
their truth to your own acquaintance with our popular 
fine writers. 

In the first place, and as a general observation, the 
alleged injury has been done, to a great extent, by 
Omission, or rather it should be called Exclusion. I 
do not refer so much to that unworthy care, maintained 
through the works of our ingenious authors to avoid 
formally treating on any topics of an expressly evan- 
gelical kind, as to the absence of that christian tinge 
and modification, (rendered perceptible partly by a 
plain recognition occasionally of some great christian 
truth, and partly by a solicitous, though it were a tacit 
conformity to every principle of the christian theory,) 
which should pervade universally the sentiments re- 
garding man as a moral being. Consider how small a 
portion of the serious subjects of thought can be de- 
tached from all connexion with the religion of Christ, 
without narrowing the scope to which he meant it to 
extend, and repelling its intervention w^here he required 
it should intervene. The book which unfolds it, has 
24* 



282 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

exaggerated its comprehensiveness, and the first dis- 
tinguished christians had a delusive view of it, if it does 
not actually claim to mingle its principles with the 
whole system of moral ideas, so as to give them a 
special modification ; as the principle of fire, interfused 
through the various forms and combinations of the 
elements, contributes essentially to constitute that con- 
dition by which they are adapted to their important 
uses, which condition and adaptation therefore they 
would lose if that principle were no longer inherent. 

And this claim for the extensive interference of the 
christian principles, made as a requirement from au- 
thority, appears to be just in virtue of their own nature. 
For they are not of a nature which necessarily restricts 
them to a peculiar department, like the principles ap- 
propriate to some of the sciences. We should at once 
perceive the absurdity of a man who should be pre- 
tending to adjust all his ideas on general subjects ac- 
cording to the rules of geometry, and should maintain 
(if any man could do so preposterous a thing) that geo- 
metrical laws ought to be taken as the basis of our rea- 
soning on politics and morals. Or, if this be too ex- 
treme a supposition, let any other class of principles, 
foreign to moral subjects, be selected, in order to show 
how absurd is the efiect of an attempt to stretch them 
beyond their proper sphere, and force them into some 
connexion with ideas with which they have no natural 
relation. Let it be shown how such principles can in 
no degree modify the subject to which they are at- 
tempted to be applied, nor mingle with the reasons 
concerning it, but refuse to touch it, like magnetism 
applied to brass. I would then show, on the contrary, 
that the christian principles are of a quality which puts 
them in relation with something in the nature of almost 
all serious subjects. Their introduction into those sub- 
jects therefore is not an arbitrary and forced applica- 
tion of them ; it is merely permitting their cognizance 
and interfusion in whatever has some quality of a com- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 283 

mon nature with them. It must be evident in a mo- 
ment that the most general doctrines of Christianity, 
such as those of a future judgment, and immortality, 
have a direct relation with every thing that can be 
comprehended within the widest range of moral specu- 
lation and sentiment. It will also be found that the 
more particular doctrines, such as those of the moral 
pravity of our nature, an atonement made by the sac- 
rifice of Christ, the interference of a special divine in- 
fluence in renewing the human mind, and conducting 
it. through the discipline for a future state, together 
with all the inferences, conditions, and motives result- 
ing from them, cannot be admitted and religiously re- 
garded, without combining in numberless instances 
with a man's ideas on moral subjects. That writer 
must therefore have retired beyond the limits of an im- 
mense field of important and most interesting specula- 
tions, indeed beyond the limits of all the speculation 
most important to man, who can say that nothing in 
the religion of Christ bears, in any manner, on any 
part of his subject, anymore than if he were a philoso- 
pher of Saturn. ^ 

In thus habitually interfering and combining with 
moral sentiments and speculations, the christian prin- 
ciples will greatly modify them. The ideas infused 
from those principles to be combined with the moral 
sentiments, will not appear as simply additional ideas 
in the train of thought, but as also affecting the char- 
acter of the rest. A writer whose mind is so possessed 
with the christian principles that they continually sug- 
gest themselves in connexion with his serious specu- 
lations, will unavoidably present a moral subject in a 
somewhat different aspect, even when he makes no ex- 
press references to the gospel, from that in which it 
would be presented by another writer, whose habits of 
thought were clear of evangelical recollections. Now 
in every train of thinking in which the recognition of 
those principles would effect this modification, it ought 



284 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

to be effected ; so that the very last idea within the 
compass of speculation which would have a different 
cast as a ray of the gospel falls, or does not fall, upon 
it, should be faithfully presented in that light. The 
christian principles cannot be true, without determining 
what shall be true in the mode of representing every 
subject in which there is any thing belonging to them 
by essential relation. Obviously, as far as the gospel 
can go, and does by such relation with things claim to 
go, with a modifying action, it cannot be a matter of 
indifference whether it do go or not ; for nothing on 
which its application would have this effect, would be 
equally right as so modified and as not so modified. 
That which is made precisely correct by this qualified 
condition, must therefore, separately from it, be incor- 
rect. He who has sent a revelation to declare the the- 
ory of sacred truth, and to order the relations of all 
moral sentiment with that truth, cannot give his sanc- 
tion at once to this final constitution, and to that which 
refuses to be conformed to it. He therefore disowns 
that which disowns the religion of Christ. And what 
he disowns he condemns ; thus placing all moral sen- 
timents in the same predicament with regard to the 
christian economy, in which Jesus Christ placed his 
contemporaries, " He that is not with me is against 
me." — The order of ideas dissentient from the christian 
system, presumes the existence, or attempts the creation, 
of some other economy. 

Now, in casting a recollective glance over our ele- 
gant literature, as far as I am acquainted with it, I can- 
not help thinking that much the greater part falls under 
this condemnation. After a comparatively small num- 
ber of names and books are excepted, what are called 
the British Classics, with the addition of very many 
works of great literary merit that have not quite at- 
tained that rank, present an immense vacancy of chris- 
tianized sentiment. The authors do not give signs of 
having ever deeply siudied Christianity, or of having 



J 



TO EVANGEICAL RELIGION. 285 

been aware that any such thing is a duty. Whatever 
has strongly occupied a man's attention, affected his 
feelings, and filled his mind with ideas, will even un- 
intentionally show itself in the train and cast of his 
discourse ; these writers do not ni this manner betray 
that their faculties have been occupied and interested 
by the special views unfolded in the evangelic dispen- 
sation. Of their coming from the contemplation of 
these views you discover no notices analogous, for in- 
stance, to those which appear in the writing or dis- 
course of a man, who has been passing some time 
amidst the wonders of Rome or Egypt, and who shows 
you, by almost unconscious allusions and images oc- 
curring in his language even on other subjects, how 
profoundly he has been interested in beholding tri- 
umphal arches, temples, pyramids, and cemeteries. 
Their minds are not naturalized, if I may so speak, to 
the images and scenery of the kingdom of Christ, or to 
that kind of light which the gospel throws on all ob- 
jects. They are somewhat like the inhabitants of those 
towns within the vast salt mines of Poland, who, see- 
ing every object in their region by the light of lamps 
and candles only, have in their conversation hardly 
any expressions describing things in such aspects as 
never appear but under the lights of heaven. You 
might observe, the next time that you open one of these 
works, how far you may read, without meeting with 
an idea of such a nature, or so expressed, as could not 
have been unless Jesus Christ had come into the 
world ;* though the subject in hand may be one of 
those which he came in a special manner to illuminate, 
and to enforce on the mind by new and most cogent 
arguments. And Vv'here so little of the light and rec- 
tifying influence of these communications has been ad- 

* Except perhaps in respect to humanity and benevolence, on 
which subject his instructions have improved the sentiments of 
infidels themselves, in spite of the rejection of their divine author- 



286 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

mitted into the habits of thought, there will be very- 
few cordially reverential and animated references to 
the great Instructor himself. These will perhaps occur 
not oftener than a traveller in some parts of Africa, or 
Arabia, comes to a spot of green vegetation in the desert. 
You might have read a considerable number of vol- 
umes, without becoming clearly apprised of the exist- 
ence of the dispensation, or that such a sublime Min- 
ister of it had ever appeared among men. And you 
might have diligently read, for several years, and 
through several hundred volumes, without discovering 
its nature or importance, or that the writers, when al- 
luding to it, acknowledged any peculiar and essential 
importance as belonging to it. You would only have 
conjectured it to be a scheme of opinions and discipline 
which had appeared, in its day, as many others had 
appeared, and left us. as the others have left us, to fol- 
low our speculations very much in our own way, 
taking from those schemes, indifferently, any notions 
that we may approve, and facts or fictions that we may 
admire. 

You would have supposed that these writers had 
heard of one Jesus Christ, as they had heard of one 
Confucius, as a teacher whose instructions are admitted 
to contain many excellent things, and to whose system 
a liberal mind will occasionally advert, well pleased to. 
see China, Greece, and Judea, as well as England, 
producing their philosophers, of various degrees and 
modes of illumination, for the honour of their respec- 
tive countries and periods, and for the concurrent pro- 
motion of human intelligence. All the information 
which they would have supplied to your understanding, 
and all the conjectures to which they might have ex- 
cited your curiosity, would have left you, if not instruct- 
ed from other sources, to meet the real religion itself, 
when at length disclosed to you, as a thing of which 
you had but slight recognition, further than its name ; 
as a wonderful novelty. How little you would have 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 287 

expected, from their literary and ethical glimpses, to 
find the case to be, that the system so insignificantly 
and carelessly acknowledged in the course of their fine 
sentiments, is the actual and sole economy by the pro- 
visions of which their happiness can be secured, by the 
laws of which they will be judged, which has declared 
the relations of man with his Creator, and specified the 
exclusive ground of acceptance ; which is therefore of 
infinite consequence to you, and to them, and to all 
their readers, as fixing the entire theory of the condi- 
tion and destinies of man on the final principles, to 
which all theories and sentiments are solemnly required 
to be "brought into obedience." 

Now, if the fine spirits, who have thus preserved an 
ample, rich, diversified, crowded province of our litera- 
ture, clear of evangelical intrusion, are really the chief 
instructors of persons of taste, and form, from early life, 
their habits of feeling and thought, the natural result 
must be a state of mind very uncongenial with the 
gospel. Views habitually presented to the mind in its 
most susceptible periods, and during the prolonged 
course of its improvements, in the varied forms and 
lights of sublimity and beauty, with every fascination 
of the taste, ingenuity, and eloquence, which it has 
admired still more each year as its faculties have ex- 
panded, will have become the settled order of its ideas. 
And it will feel the same complacency in this intellec- 
tual order, that we feel, as inhabitants of the material 
world, in the great arrangement of nature, in the green 
blooming earth, and the splendid hemisphere of heaven. 



LETTER VIII. 

It will be proper to specify, somewhat more dis 
tinctly, several of the particulars in which 1 consider 



288 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

the majority of our fine writers as at variance with 
the tenour of the christian revelation, and therefore 
beguiling their readers into a complacency in an order 
of sentiments that sometimes virtually, and sometimes 
directly, disowns it. 

One thing extremely obvious to remark is, that the 
good man^ the man of virtue, who is necessarily coming 
often in view in the volumes of these writers, is not a 
christian. His character could have been formed 
though the christian revelation had never been opened 
on the earth, or though the New Testament had per- 
ished ages since ; and it might have been a fine spec- 
tacle, but of no striking peculiarity. It has no such 
complexion and aspect as would have appeared foreign 
and unaccountable in the absence of the christian truth, 
and have excited wonder what it should bear relation 
to, and on what model, or in what school, such a con- 
formation of principles and feelings could have taken 
its consistence. Let it only be said, that this man of 
virtue had been conversant whole years with such 
oracles and examples as Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Anto- 
ninus, and Seneca, selecting what in any of them ap- 
peared the wisest or best, and all would be explained ; 
there would be nothing to suggest the question, '• But 
if so, with whom has he conversed since, to lose so 
strangely the proper character of his school, under the 
broad impression of some other mightier influence ?" 

The good man of our polite literature never talks 
with affectionate devotion of Christ, as the great High 
Priest of his profession, as the exalted friend and lord, 
whose injunctions are the laws of his virtues, whose 
work and sacrifice are the basis of his hopes, whose 
doctrines guide and awe his reasonings, and whose ex- 
ample is the pattern which he is earnestl}?- aspiring to 
resemble. The last intellectual and moral designations 
in the world by which it would occur to you to describe 
him, would be those by which the apostles so much 
exulted to be recognised, a disciple, and a servant, of 



i 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 289 

Jesus Christ; nor could you imagine him as at all 
gratified by being- so described. You do not hear him 
express, that he accounts the habitual remembrance of 
Christ essential to the nature of that excellence which 
he is cultivating. He rather seems, with the utmost 
coolness of choice, adopting virtue as according with 
the dignity of a rational agent, than to be in the least 
degree impelled to the high attainment by any rela- 
tions with the Saviour of the world. 

If you suppose a person of such character to have 
fallen into the company of St. Paul, you can easily 
imagine the total want of congeniality. Though both 
avowedly devoted to truth, to virtue, and perhaps to 
religion, the difference in the cast of their sentiments 
would have been as great as that between the physical 
constitution and habitudes of a native of the country 
at the equator, and those of one from the arctic re- 
gions. Would not that determination of the apostle's 
mind, by which there was a continual intervention of 
ideas .concerning one great object, in all subjects, places, 
and times, have appeared to this man of virtue and 
wisdom inconceivably mystical? In what manner 
would he have listened to the emphatical expressions 
respecting the love of Christ constraining us, living not 
to ourselves, but to him that died for us and rose again, 
counting all things but loss for the knowledge of 
Christ, being ardent to win Christ and be found in 
him, and trusting that Christ should be magnified in 
our body, whether by life or by death ? Perhaps St. 
Paul's energy of temperament, evidently combined 
Avith a vigorous intellect, might have awed him into 
silence. But amidst that silence, he must have decided, 
in order to defend his self-complacency, that the apos- 
tle's mind had fallen, notwithstanding its strength, un- 
der the dominion of an irrational association ; for he 
would have been conscious that no such ideas had 
ever kindled his afl^ections, and that no such affections 
had ever animated his actions ; and yet he was indubi- 
25 



290 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTlS 

tably a good man, according to a generally approved 
standard, and could, in another style, be as eloquent 
for goodness as St. Paul himself. He would therefore 
have assured himself, either that it was not necessary 
to be a christian, or that this order of feelings was not 
necessary to that character. But if the apostle's sa- 
gacity had detected the cause of this reserve, and the 
nature of his associate's reflections, he would most cer- 
tainly have declared to him with emphasis that both 
these things were necessary — or that he had been de- 
ceived by inspiration ; and he would have parted from 
this self-complacent man with admonition and compas- 
sion. Would St. Paul have been wrong ? But if he 
would have been right, what becomes of those authors, 
whose works, whether from neglect or design, tend to 
satisfy their readers of the perfection of a form of 
character which he would have pronounced essentially 
unsound ? 

Again, moral writings are instructions on the sub- 
ject of happiness. Now the doctrine of this subject is 
declared in the evangelical testimony : it had been 
strange indeed if it had not, when the happiness of 
man was expressly the object of the communication. 
And what, according to this communication, are the 
essential requisites to that condition of the mind 
without which no man ought to be called happy ; 
without which ignorance or insensibility alone can be 
content, and folly alone can be cheerful ? A simple 
reader of the christian scriptures will reply that they 
are — a change of heart, called conversion, the assu- 
rance of the pardon of sin through Jesus Christ, a 
habit of devotion approaching so near to intercourse 
with the Supreme Object of devotion that revelation 
has called it " communion with God," a process, named 
sanctification, of improvement in all internal and ex- 
ternal virtue, a confidence in the divine Providence 
that all things shall work together for good, and a 
conscious preparation for another life, including a firm 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 291 

hope of eternal felicity. And what else can he reply? 
Did the lamp of heaven ever shine more clearly since 
omnipotence lighted it, than these ideas display them- 
selves through the christian revelation 1 Is this then 
absolutely and exclusively the true account of hap- 
piness 1 It is not that which our accomplished writers 
in general have chosen to sanction. Your recollection 
will tell you that they have most certainly presumed to 
avow, or to insinuate, a doctrine of happiness which 
implies much of the christian doctrine to be a needless 
intruder on our speculations, or an imposition on our 
belief; and I wonder that this grave fact should so 
little have alarmed the christian students of elegant 
literature. The wide difference between the dictates 
of the two authorities is too evident to be overlooked ; 
for the writers in question have very rarely, amidst an 
immense assemblage of sentiments concerning happi- 
ness, made any reference to what the inspired teachers 
so explicitly declare to be its constituent and vital 
principles. How many times you might read the sun 
or the moon to its repose, before you would find an 
assertion or a recognition, for instance, of a change of 
the mind being requisite to happiness, in any terms 
commensurate with the significance which this article 
seems to bear, in all the varied propositions and notices 
respecting it in the New Testament ! Some of these 
writers appear hardly to have admitted or to have 
recollected even the maxim, that happiness must essen- 
tially consist in something so fixed in the mind itself. 
as to be substantially independent of worldly condition, 
for their most animated representations of it are merely 
descriptions of fortunate combinations of external cir- 
cumstances, and of the feelings so immediately de- 
pending on them, that they will expire the moment 
that these combinations are broken up. The greater 
number, however, have fully admitted so plain a truth, 
and have given their illustrations of the doctrine of 
happiness accordingly. And what appears in these 



292 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

illustrations as the brightest image of happiness 1 It 
is, probably, that of a man feeling an elevated com* 
placency in his own excellence, a proud consciousness 
of rectitude ; privileged with freedom of thought, and 
extended views, cleared from the mists of prejudice 
and superstition ; displaying the generosity of his na- 
ture in the exercise of benevolence, without feeling, 
however, any grateful incitement from remembrance 
of the transcendent generosity of the Son of Man ; 
maintaining, in respect to the events and bustle of the 
surrounding scene, a dignified indifference, which can 
let the world go its own way, undisturbed by its dis- 
ordered course ; temperately enjoying whatever good 
grows on his portion of the field of life, and living in 
a cool resignation to fate, without any strong expres- 
sions of a specific hope, or even solicitude, with regard 
to the termination of life and to all futurity. Now, 
notwithstanding a partial coincidence of this description 
with the christian theory of happiness,* it is evident 
that on the whole the two modes are so different that 
no man can realize them both. The consequence is 
clear ; the natural effect of incompetent and fallacious 
schemes, prepossessing the mind by every grace and 
force of genius, will be an aversion to the christian 
scheme ; which will be seen to place happiness in 
elements and relations much less flattering to what will 
be called a noble pride ; to make it consist in some- 
thing of which it were a vain presumption for the man 
to fancy that himself can be the sovereign creator. 

It is, again, a prominent characteristic of the chris- 
tian revelation, that having declared this life to be but 
the introduction to another, it systematically preserves 
the recollection of this great truth through every rep- 

* No one can be so absurd as to represent the notions which 
pervade the works of polite Uterature as totally, and at all points, 
opposite to the principles of Christianity; what I am asserting is, 
that in some important points they are substantially and essentially 
diflferent, and that in others they disown the christian modification. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 293 

resentation of every subject ; so that the reader is not 
allowed to contemplate any of the interests of life in 
a view which detaches them from the grand object and' 
conditions of life itself An apostle could not address 
his friends on the most common concerns, for the 
length of a page, without the final references. He is 
like a person whose eye. while he is conversing with 
you about an object, or a succession of objects, imme- 
diately near, should glance every moment toward some 
great spectacle appearing on the distant horizon. He 
seems to talk to his friends in somewhat of that man- 
ner of expression with which you can imagine that 
Elijah spoke, if he remarked to his companion any 
circumstance in the journey from Bethel to Jericho, 
and from Jericho to the Jordan ; a manner betraying 
the sublime anticipation which was pressing on his 
thoughts. The correct consequence of conversing with 
our Lord and his apostles would be, that the thought 
of immortality should become almost as habitually 
present and familiarized to the mind as the countenance 
of a domestic friend ; that it should be the grand test 
of the value of all pursuits, friendships, and specula- 
tions ; and that it should mingle a certain nobleness 
with every thing which it permitted to occupy our 
time. Now, how far will the discipline of modern po- 
lite literature coincide ? 

I should be pleased to hear a student of that litera- 
ture seriously profess that he is often and impressively 
reminded of futurity ; and to have it shown that ideas 
relating to this great subject are presented in sufficient 
number, and in a proper manner, to produce an effect 
which should form a respectable proportion of the 
whole effect produced by these authors on susceptible 
minds. But there is no ground for expecting this 
satisfaction. 

It is true that the idea of immortality is so exceed- 
ingly grand, that many writers of genius who have felt 
but little genuine interest in religion, have been led by 
25* 



294 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

their perception of what is sublime to introduce an 
allusion which is one of the most powerful means of 
elevating- the imagination : and, in point of energy 
and splendour, their language has been worthy of the 
subject. In these instances, however, it is seldom 
found that the idea is presented in that light which, 
while displaying it prominent in its individual gran- 
deur, shows also its extensive necessary connexion with 
other ideas : it appears somewhat like a majestic tower, 
which a traveller in some countries may find standing 
in a solitary scene, no longer surrounded by the great 
assemblage of buildings, the ample city, of which it 
was raised to be the centre, the strength, and the orna- 
ment. Immortality has been had recourse to in on 
page of an ingenious work as a single topic of sublim- 
ity, in the same manner as a magnificent phenomenon, 
or a brilliant achievement, has been described in an- 
other. The author's object might rather seem to have 
been to supply an occasional gratification to taste, than 
to reduce the mind and all its feelings under the do- 
minion of a grand practical principle. 

It is true also, that a graver class of fine writers, who 
have expressed considerable respect for religion and 
for Christianity, and who, though not writing systemat- 
ically on morals, have inculcated high moral principles, 
have made references to a future state as the hope and 
sanction of virtue. But these references are made less 
frequently, and with less enforcement and emphasis, 
than tho connexion between our present conduct and 
a future life must be acknowledged to claim. The 
manner in which they are made seems to betray either 
a deficiency of interest in the great subject, or a pusil- 
lanimous anxiety not to offend those readers who would 
think it too directly religious. It is sometimes ad- 
verted to as if rather from a compelling sense, that if 
there is a future state, moral speculation must be de- 
fective, even to a degree of absurdity, without some 
allusions to it, than from feeling a profound deUght in 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION, 295 

the contemplation. When the idea of another life is 
introduced to aggravate the force of moral principles, 
and the authority of conscience, it is done so as to ap- 
pear like a somewhat reluctant acknowledgment of 
the deficiency of inferior sanctions. The consideration 
comes and vanishes in transient light, after the writer 
has eloquently expatiated on every circumstance by 
which the present life can supply motives to goodness. 
In some instances, a watchful reader will also perceive 
what appears too much like care to divest the idea, 
when it must be introduced, of all direct references to 
that sacred Person who first completely opened the 
prospect of immortality, or to some of those other doc- 
trines which he taught in immediate connexion with 
this great truth. There seems reason to suspect the 
writer of being pleased that, though it is indeed to the 
gospel alone that we owe the positive assurance of 
immortality, yet it w^as a subject so much in the con- 
jectures and speculation of the heathen sages, that he 
may mention it without therefore so expressly recog- 
nising the gospel, as he must in the case of introducing 
some truth of which not only the evidence, but even 
the first explicit conception, was communicated by that 
dispensation. 

Taking this defective kind of acknowledgment of a 
future state, together with that entire oblivion of the 
subject which prevails through aa ample portion of 
elegant literature, I think there is no hazard m saying, 
that a reader who is satisfied without any other in- 
structions, will learn almost every lesson sooner than 
the necessity of habitually living for eternity. Many 
of these writers seem to take as much care to guard 
against the inroad of ideas from that solemn quarter, as 
the inhabitants of Holland do against the irruption of 
the sea ; and their writings do really form a kind of 
motal dyke against the invasion from the other world. 
They do not instruct a man to act, to enjoy, and to 
suffer, as a being that may by to-morrow have finally 



296 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

abandoned this orb : every thing is done to beguile the 
feeling of his being a " stranger and a pilgrim on the 
earth." The relation which our nature bears to the 
circumstances of the present state, and which indi- 
viduals bear to one another, is mainly the ground on 
which their considerations of duty proceed and con- 
clude. And their schemes of happiness, though formed 
for beings at once immortal and departing, include 
little which avowedly relates to that world to which 
they are removing, nor reach beyond the period at 
which they will properly but begin to live. They 
endeavour to raise the groves of an earthly paradise, to 
shade from sight that vista which opens to the distance 
of eternity. 

Another article in which the anti-christian tendency 
of a great part of our productions of taste and genius 
is apparent, is, the kind of consolation administered to 
distress, old age, and death. Things of a mournful 
kind make so large a portion of the lot of humanity, 
that it is impossible for writers who take human life and 
feelings for their subject to avoid, (nor indeed have 
they endeavoured to avoid,) contemplating man in those 
conditions in which he needs every benignant aid to 
save him from despair. And here, if any where, we 
may justly require an absolute coincidence of all moral 
instructions with the religion of Christ ; since consola- 
tion is eminently its distinction and its design ; since a 
being in distress has peculiarly a right not to be trifled 
with by the application of unadapted expedients ; and 
since insufficient consolations are but to mock it, and 
deceptive ones are to betray. It should then be clearly 
ascertained by the moralist, and never forgotten, what 
are the consolations provided by this religion, and 
under what condition they are offered. 

Christianity offers even to the irreligious, who relent 
amidst their sufferings, the alleviation springing from 
inestimable promises made to penitence: any other 
system, which should attempt to console them, simply 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 297 

as suffering, and without any reference to the moral 
and religious state of their minds, would be mischiev- 
ous, if it were not inefficacious. What are the princi- 
pal sources of consolation to the pious, is immediately- 
apparent. The subjects of adversity and sorrow are 
assured that God exercises his paternal wisdom and 
kindness in afflicting his children : that this necessary 
discipline is to refine and exalt them by making them 
" partakers of his holiness ;" that he mercifully regards 
their weakness and pains, and will not let them suffer 
beyond what they shall be able to bear ; that their 
great Leader has suffered for them more than they can 
suffer, and compassionately sympathizes with them still ; 
that this short life was far less designed to confer a 
present happiness, than to mature them to a fitness for 
being happy for ever ; and that patient constaticy shall 
receive a resplendent crown. An aged christian is 
soothed by the assurance that his Almighty Friend will 
not despise the enfeebled exertions, nor desert the op- 
pressed and fainting weakness, of the last stage of his 
servant's life. When advancing into the shade of death 
itself, he is animated by the faith that the great sacri- 
fice has taken the malignity of death away ; and that 
the divine presence will attend the dark steps of this 
last and lonely enterprise, and shew the dying traveller 
and combatant that even this melancholy gJoom is to 
him the utmost limit of the dominion of evil, the very 
confine of paradise, the immediate access to the region 
of eternal life. 

Now, in the greater number of the works under re- 
view, what are the modes of consolation which sensi- 
bility, reason, and eloquence, have most generally ex- 
erted themselves to apply to the mournful circumstances 
of life, and to its close 1 You will readily recollect such 
as these : a man is suffering — well, it is the common 
destiny, every one suffers sometimes, and some much 
more than he ; it is well it is no worse. If he is un- 
happy now, he has been happy, and he could not ex- 



298 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OP TASTE 

pect to be so invariably. It were folly to complain that 
his nature was constituted capable of suffering, or placed 
in a world where it is exposed to the infliction. If it 
were not capable of pain, it would not of pleasure. 
Would he be willing to lose his being, to escape these 
ills 1 Or would he consent, if such a thing were pos- 
sible, to be any person else ? — The sympathy of each 
kind relation and friend will not be wanting. His 
condition may probably change for the better ; there is 
hope in every situation ; and meanwhile, it is an oppor- 
tunity for displaying manly fortitude. A strong mind 
can proudly triumph over the oppression of pain, the 
vexations of disappointment, and the tyranny of for- 
tune. If the cause of distress is some irreparable depri- 
vation, it will be softened by the lenient hand of time.* 
The lingering months of an aged man are soothed 
almost, it is pretended, into cheerfulness, by the re- 
spectful attention of his neighbours ; by the worldly 
prosperity and dutiful regard of the family he has 
brought up ; by the innocent gaiety and amusing activ- 
ity of their children ; and by the consideration of his 
fair character in society. If he is a man of thought, 
he has the added advantage of some philosophical con- 
siderations ; the cares and passions of his former life 
are calmed into a wise tranquillity ; he thinks he has 
had a competent share of life ; it is as proper and 
necessary for mankind to have their " exits," as their 
" entrances ;" and his business will now be to make 
a " well-graced" retreat from the stage, like a man 
that has properly acted his part, and may retire with 
applause. 

* Can it be necessary to notice here again, that every system of 
moral sentiments must inevitably contain some principles not dis- 
claimed by Christianity ; w^ith whose dictates various particulars in 
this assemblage of consolations are not inconsistent if held in a 
subordinate rank *? But the enumeration taken altogether, and 
exclusively of the grand christian principles, forms a scheme of 
consolation essentially different from that so beneficently displayed 
in the religion of Christ. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 299 

As to the means of sustaining the spirit in death, the 
general voice of these authors asserts the chief and only 
all-sufficient one to be the recollection of a well-spent 
life. Some minor repellents of fear are added ; as for 
instance, that death is in fact a far less tremendous 
thing than that dire form of it by which imagination 
and superstition are haunted ; that the sufferings in 
death are less than men often endure in the course of 
life ; that it is only like one of those transformations 
with which the world of nature abounds ; and that it is 
easy to conceive, and reasonable to expect, a more com- 
modious vehicle and habitation. It would seem almost 
unavoidable to glance a thought toward what revela- 
tion has signified to us of " the house not made with 
hands," of the " better country, that is, the heavenly." 
But the greater number of the writers of taste advert 
to the scene beyond this world with apparent reluctance, 
unless it can be done, on the one hand, in the manner 
of pure philosophical conjecture, or on the other, under 
the form of images, bearing some analogy to the visions 
of classical poetry.* 

The arguments for resignation to death are not so 
much drawn from future scenes, as from a consideration 
of the evils of the present life ; the necessity of yielding 
to a general and irreversible law ; the dignity of sub- 
mitting with that calmness which conscious virtue is 
entitled to feel ; and the improbability (as these writers 
sometimes intimate) that any formidable evils are to be 
apprehended after death, except by a few of the very 

* I am very far from disliking philosophical speculation, or da- 
ring flights of fancy, on this high subject. On the contrary, it ap- 
pears to me strange that any one firmly holding the belief of a life to 
come, should not have both the intellectual faculty and the imagina- 
tion excited to the utmost effort in the trial, however unavailing, 
to give some outlines of definite form to the unseen realities. What 
I mean to censure in the mode of referring to another life, is, the 
care to avoid any direct resemblance or recognition of the ideas 
which the New Testament has given to guide, in some small, very 
small degree, our conjectures. 



300 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

worst of the human race. Those arguments are in 
general rather aimed to quiet fear than to animate hope. 
The pleaders of them seem more concerned to convey 
the dying man in peace and silence out of the world, 
than to conduct him to the celestial felicity. Let us 
but see him embarked on his unknown voyage in fair 
weather, and we are not accountable for what he may 
meet, or whither he may be carried, when he is gone 
out of sight. They seldom present a lively view of the 
distant happiness, especially in any of those images in 
which the christian revelation has intimated its nature. 
In which of these books, and by which of the real or 
fictitious characters whose last hours and thoughts they 
sometimes display, will you find, in terms or in spirit, 
the apostolic sentiments adopted, " To depart and be 
with Christ is far better ;" " Willing rather to be ab- 
sent from the body, and present with the Lord ?" The 
very existence of that sacred testimony which has given 
the only genuine consolations in death, and the only 
just conceptions of what is beyond it, seems to be scarce- 
ly recollected ; while the ingenious moralists are search- 
ing the exhausted common places of the stoic philosophy, 
or citing the treacherous maxims of a religion pervert- 
ed to accordance with the corrupt wishes of mankind, 
or even recollecting the lively sayings of the few whose 
wit has expired only in the same moment with life, to 
fortify the pensive spirit for its last removal. " Is it not 
because there is not a God in Israel, that ye have sent 
to inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron 1" 

Another order of sentiments concerning death, of a 
character too bold to be called consolations, has been 
represented as animating one class of human beings. 
In remarking on Lucan, I noticed that desire of death 
which has appeared in the expressions of great minds, 
sometimes while merely indulging solemn reflections 
when no danger or calamity immediately threatened, 
but often in the conscious approach towards a fatal ca- 
tastrophe. Many writers of later times have exerted 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 301 

their whole strength, and have even excelled themselves, 
in representing the high sentiments in which this de- 
sire has displayed itself; genius has found its very- 
gold mine in this field. If this grandeur of sentiment 
had been of the genuine spirit to animate piety while 
it exalts the passions, some of the poets v/ould have 
ranked among our greatest benefactors. Powerful ge- 
nius, aiding to inspire a christian triumph in the pros- 
pect of death, might be revered as a prophet, might be 
almost loved as a benignant angel. Few men's emo- 
tions can have approached nearer to enthusiasm than 
mine, in reading the sentiments made to be uttered by 
sages and reflective heroes in this prospect. I have 
felt these passages as the last and mightiest of the en- 
chantments of poetry, of power to inspire for a little 
while a contempt of all ordinary interests, of the world 
which we inhabit, and of life itself While the enthu- 
siast is elated with such an emotion, nothing may ap- 
pear so captivating as some noble occasion of dying ; 
such an occasion as that when Socrates died for virtue ; 
or that when Brutus at Philippi fell with falling lib- 
erty,* Poetry has delighted to display personages of 
this high order, in the same fatal predicament : and 
the situation of such men has appeared inexpressibly 
enviable, by means of those sublime sentiments by 
which they illuminated the gloom of death. The 
reader has loved to surround himself in imagination 
with that gloom, for the sake of irradiating it with that 
sublimity. All other greatness has been for a while 
eclipsed by the greatness of thought displayed by these 

* Poetry will not easily exceed many of the exprestions which 
mere history has recorded. I should Uttle admire the capabihty of 
feeling, or greatly admire the christian temper, of the man who 
could without emotion read, for instance, the short observations of 
Brutus to his friend, (in contemplation even of a sdf-injlicted 
death,) on the eve of the battle which extinguished all hope of free- 
dom : " We shall either be victorious, or pass away beyond the 
power of those that are so. We shall deliver our country by vic- 
tory, or ourselves by death." 

26 



302 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

contemplative and magnanimous spirits, though un- 
taught by religion, when advancing to meet their fate. 
But the christian faith recalls the mind from this en- 
chantment, to recollect that the christian spirit in dying 
can be the only right and noble one, and to consider 
whether these examples be not exceedingly different. 
Have not the most enlightened and devout christians, 
whether they have languished in their chambers, or 
passed through the fire of martyrdom, manifested their 
elevation of mind in another strain of eloquence 1 The 
examples of greatness in death, which poetry has ex- 
hibited, generally want all those sentiments respecting 
the pardon of sin, and a Mediator who has accomplished 
and confers the deliverance, and often the explicit idea 
of meeting the Judge, with which a christian contem- 
plates his approaching end. Their expressions of in- 
trepidity and exultation have no analogy with the lan- 
guage of an incomparable saint and hero, " O death, 
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 
Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through 
our Lord Jesus Christ." The kind of self-authorized 
confidence of taking possession of some other state of 
being, as monarchs would talk of a distant part of their 
empire which they were going to enter ; the proud 
apostrophes to the immortals, to prepare for the great 
and rival spirit that is coming ; their manner of con- 
signing to its fate a good but falling cause, which will 
sink when they are gone, there not being virtue 
enough on earth to support, or in heaven to vindi- 
cate it ; their welcoming the approach of death in an 
exultation of lofty and bitter scorn of a hated world and 
a despicable race — are not the humility, nor the benev- 
olence, nor the reverential submission to the Supreme 
Governor, with which it is in the proper character of a 
christian to die. If a christian will partly unite with 
these high spirits in being weary of a world of dust 
and trifles, in defying the pains of death, in panting for 
an unbounded liberty, it will be at the same tim^e with 



TO EVANGELICAL P.ELIGION. 303 

a most solemn commitment of himself to the divine 
mercy, which they forget, or were never instructed, to 
implore. And as to the vision of the other world, you 
will observe a great difference between the language of 
sublime poetry and that of revelation, in respect to the 
nature of the sentiments and triumphs of that world, and 
still more perhaps in respect to the associates with 
whom the departing spirit expects soon to mingle. 
The dying magnanimity of poetr}?- anticipates high con- 
verse with the souls of heroes, and patriots, and per- 
haps philosophers ; a christian feels himself going, (I 
may accommodate the passage,) to " an innumerable 
company of angels, to the general assembly and church 
of the first-born, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits 
of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of 
the new covenant." 

In defence of those who have thus given attractions 
to the image of death by means foreign and opposite 
to the evangelical principles, it may be said, that many 
of the personages whom their scenes exhibit in the 
contemplation of death, or in the approach to it, were 
necessarily, from the age or country in which they 
lived or are feigned to have lived, unacquainted with 
Christianity ; and that therefore it would have been ab- 
surd to represent them as animated by christian senti- 
ments. Certainly. But then I ask, on what ground 
men of genius will justify themselves for choosing^ \Ni\h. 
a view to the improvement of the heart, as they will 
profess, examples of which they cannot preserve the 
consistency, without making them pernicious ? Where 
is the conscience of that man, who is anxiously careful 
that every sentiment expressed by the historical or fic- 
titious personage, in the fatal season, should be harmo- 
nious with every principle of the character, — but feels 
not the smallest concern about the consistency of select- 
ing or creating the character itself, with his conviction 
of the absolute authority of the religion of Christ ? In 
glancing forward, he knows that his favourite is to die, 



304 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

and that he cannot die as a christian ; yet he is to de- 
part in a splendour of moral dignity. Would it not 
therefore be a dictate of conscience to warn his readers, 
that he expects to display the exit with a commanding 
sublimity, of which the natural effect is to be, a com- 
placency, or an elation, in the idea of such a death as 
a christian caimot die I But how would he feel while 
giving such a warning ? Might it not be said to him, 
And are you then willing to die otherwise than as a 
christian ? If you are, you virtually pronounce Chris- 
tianity an imposture, and, to be consistent, should avow 
the rejection. If you are not, how can you endeavour 
to seduce your readers into an enthusiastic admiration 
of such a death as you wish may now be yours ? How 
can you endeavour to infect your reader with senti- 
ments which you could not hear him utter in his last 
hours without alarm for the state of his mind ? Is it 
necessary to the pathos and sublimity of poetry, to in- 
troduce characters which cannot be justly represented 
without falsifying our view of the most serious of all 
subjects? If this be necessary, it would be better that 
poetry with all its charms were exploded, than that 
the revelation of God should be frustrated in the great 
object and demand of fixing its own ideas of death, 
clearly and alone, in the minds of beings whose man- 
ner of preparing for it is of infinite consequence. But 
there is no such dilemma ; since many examples could 
be found, and an unlimited number may with rational 
probability be imagined, of christian greatness in death. 
Are not then the preference of examples adverse to 
Christianity, and that temper of the poet's mind which 
is in such full sympathy with them, empowering him 
to personate them with such entireness and animation, 
and to express for them all the appropriate feelings, a 
worse kind of infidelity, as it is far more injurious, than 
that of the cold dealer in cavils and quibbles against 
the gospel ? "What is the christian belief of that poet 
worth, who would not on reflection feel self-reproach 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 305 

for the affecting scene, which may for a while have be- 
trayed some of his readers to regard it as a more dig- 
nified thing to depart in the character of Socrates or 
Cato, than of St. John or a christian martyr ? What 
would have been thought of the pupil of an apostle, 
who, after hearing his master describe the spirit of a 
christian's departure from the world, in language which 
he believed to be of conclusive authority, and which 
asserted or clearly implied that this alone was great- 
ness in death, should have taken the first occasion to 
expatiate with enthusiasm on the closing scene of a 
philosopher, or on the exit of a stern hero, that, ac- 
knowledging within the visible creation no object for 
either confidence or fear, departed with the aspect of a 
being who should be going to summon his gods to 
judgment for the misfortunes of his life ? And how 
will these careless men of genius give their account to 
the Judge of the world, for having virtually taught 
many aspiring minds that, notwithstanding his first 
coming was to conquer for man the king of terrors, 
there needs no recollection of him in order to look to- 
ward death with noble defiance or sublime desire ? 

Some of their dying personages are so consciously 
uninformed of the realities of the invisible state, that 
the majestic sentiments which they disclose on the 
verge of life, can only throw a faint glimmering on 
unfathomable darkness ; but some anticipate the other 
world, as I have already observed, in very defined im- 
ages. I recollect one of them, after some just reflections 
on the vanity and wretchedness of life, thus expressing 
his complacency in view of the great deliverer : 

" Death joins us to the great majority ; 
'Tis to be born to Platos and to Caesars ; 
'Tis to be great for ever. 
'Tis pleasure, 'tis ambition then, to die." 

Another, an illustrious female, in a tragedy which I 
lately read, welcomes death with the following senti- 
ments : 

26* 



306 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OP TASTE 

" Oh 'tis wondrous well ! 

Ye gods of death, that rule the Stygian gloom ! 
Ye who have greatly died, I come ! I come ! 
The hand of Rome can never touch me more ;. 
Hail ! perfect freedom, hail !" 

" My free spirit should ere now have joined 
That great assembly, those devoted shades, 
Who scorn'd to live till liberty was lost ! 
But, ere their country fell, abhorr'd the light." 

" Shift not thy colour at the sound of death; 
It is to me perfection, glory, triumph. 
Nay, fondly would I choose it, though persuaded 
It were a long dark night without a morning ; 
To bondage far prefer it, since it is 
Deliverance from a world where Romans rule." 

"Then let us spread 

A bold exalted wing, and the last voice we hear, 
Be that of wonder and applause." 

"And is the sacred moment then so near *? 
The moment when yon sun, those heavens, this earth, 
Hateful to me, polluted by the Romans, 
And all the busy slavish race of men, 
Shall sink at once, and straight another state 
Rise on a sudden round'? 
Oh to be there!"* 

You will recollect to have read many equally im- 
proper to engage a christian's full sympathy, and there- 
fore, convicting the poetic genius which produced them 
of treachery to the true faith, in such efforts to seduce 
our feelings. It is a pernicious circumstance in passages 
of this strain, that the special thoughts and images 
which are alien from the spirit of Christianity, are im- 
plicated with those general sentiments of anticipation, 
those emotions aspiring to greatness and felicity in in- 
definite terms, which a dying christian may energeti- 
cally express ; so that through the animated sympa- 
thy with the general, and as it were elementary sen- 

* This is not perhaps one of the best specimens : it is the last 
that has come under my notice. I am certain of having read many, 
but have not recollection enough to know where to find them. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 307 

timents, the reader's mind is beguiled into complacency 
in the more special ones of an antichristian spirit. 

Sometimes even very bad men are made to display 
such dignity in death, as at once to impart an attraction 
to their false sentiments, and to mitigate the horror of 
their crimes. I recollect the interest with which I read, 
many years since, in Dr. Young's Busiris, the proud 
magnanimous speech at the end of which the tyrant 
dies : these are some of the lines : 

"I thank these wounds, these raging pains, which promise 
An interview with equals soon elsewhere. 
Great Jove, I come !" 

Even the detestable Zanga, in the prospect of death, 
while assured by his conscience that " to receive him 
hell blows all her fires," rises to a certain imposing 
greatness, by heroic courage tempered to a kind of 
moral dignity, through the relenting of revenge and the 
ingenuous manifestation of sentiments of justice. To 
create an occasion of thus compelling us to do homage 
to the dying magnanimity of wicked men, is unfaith- 
fulness to the religion which condemns such magna- 
nimity as madness. It is no justification to say that 
such instances have been known, and therefore such 
representations are only vividly reflected images of real- 
ity ; for if the laws of criticism do not enjoin, in works 
of genius, a careful adaptation of all examples and sen- 
timents to the purest moral purpose, as a far higher 
duty than the study of resemblance to the actual world, 
the laws of piety most certainly do. Let the men who 
have so much literary conscience about this verisimili- 
tude, content themselves with the office of mere histori- 
ans, and then they may relate without guilt, provided 
the relation be simple and unvarnished, all the facts, 
and speeches of depraved greatness within the memory 
of the world. But when they choose the higher office 
of inventing and combining, they are accountable for the 
consequences. They create a new person, and, in 



308 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OF TAt-TE 

sending him into society, they can choose whether his 
example shall tend to improve or to pervert the minds 
that will be compelled to admire him. 

It is an immense transition from such instances as 
those I have been remarking on, to Rousseau's cele- 
brated description of the death of his Eloisa, which 
would have been much more properly noticed in an 
earlier page. It is long since I read that scene, one of 
the most striking specimens probably of original con- 
ception and interesting sentiment that ever appeared ; 
but though the representation is so extended as to in- 
clude every thing which the author thought needful 
to make it perfect, there is no explicit reference to the 
peculiarly evangelical causes of complacency in death. 
Yet the representation is so admirable, that the serious 
reader is tempted to suspect even his own mind of fana- 
ticism, while he is expressing to his friends the wish 
that they, and that himself, may be animated, in the 
last day of life, by a class of ideas which that eloquent 
writer would have been ashamed to introduce. 



LETTER IX. 

Does it not appear to you, my dear friend, that an 
approving reader of the generality of our ingenious 
authors will acquire an opinion of the moral condition 
of our species very different from that which is dictated 
by the divine declarations? The Governor of all intel- 
ligent creatures has spoken of this nation or family of 
them, as exceedingly remote from conformity to that 
standard of perfection which alone can ever be his rule 
of judgment. And this is pronounced not only of vi- 
cious individuals, who are readily given up to condem- 
nation by those who entertain the most partial or the 
proudest estimate of human nature, but of the constitu- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 309 

tional quality of that nature itself. The moral part of 
the constitution of man is represented as placing him 
immensely below that rank of dignity and happiness 
to which, by his intellectual powers, and his privilege 
of being immortal, he would otherwise have seemed 
adapted to belong. The descriptions of the human 
condition are such as if the nature had, by a dreadful 
convulsion, been separated off at each side from a pure 
and happy system of the creation, and had fallen down 
an immeasurable depth, into depravation and misery. 
In this state man is represented as loving, and there- 
fore practically choosing, the evils which subject him 
to the condemnation of God ; and it is affirtned that 
no expedient, but that very extraordinary one which 
Christianity has revealed, can change this condition, 
and avert this condemnation with its formidable con- 
sequences. 

Every attempt to explain the wisdom and the exact 
ultimate intention of the Supreme Being, in constituting 
a nature subject in so fatal a degree to moral evil, will 
fail. But even if a new revelation were given to turn 
this dark inquiry into noonday, it would make no dif- 
ference in the actual state of things. An extension of 
knowledge could not reverse the fact, that the human 
nature has displayed, through every age, the most 
aggravated proofs of being in a deplorable and hateful 
condition, whatever were the reasons for giving a moral 
agent a constitution which it was foreseen would soon 
be found in this condition. Perhaps, if there were a 
mind expanded to a comprehension so far beyond all 
other created intelligences, that it could survey the gen- 
eral order of a great portion of the universe, and look 
into distant ages, it might understand in what manner 
the melancholy fact could operate to the perfection of 
the vast system ; and according to what principles, and 
in reference to what ends, all that has taken place 
within the empire of the Eternal Monarch is right. 
But in this contemplation of the whole, it would also 



310 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

take account of the separate condition of each part ; 
it would perceive that this human world, whatever are 
its relations to the universe, has its own distinct econo- 
my of interests, and stands in its own relation and ac- 
countableness to the righteous Governor; and that, 
regarded in this exclusive view, it is an awful specta- 
cle. Now, to this exclusive sphere of our own condi- 
tion and interests revelation confines our attention ; 
and pours contempt, though not more than experience 
pours, on all presumption to reason on those grand 
unknown principles according to which the Almighty- 
disposes the universe ; all our estimates therefore of 
the state and relations of man must take the subject on 
this insulated ground. Considering man in this view, 
the sacred oracles have represented him as a more 
melancholy object than Nineveh or Babylon in ruins ; 
and an infinite aggregate of obvious facts comfirms the 
doctrine. This doctrine then is absolute authority in 
our speculations on human nature. But to this au- 
thority the writers in question seem to pay, and to 
teach their readers to pay, but little respect. And un- 
less those readers are pre-occupied by the grave con- 
victions of religious truth, rendered still more grave by 
painful reflection on themselves, and by observation on 
mankind ; or unless they are capable of enjoying a 
malicious or misanthropic pleasure, like Mandeville and 
Swift, in detecting and exposing the degradation of 
our nature, it is not wonderful that they should be 
prompt to entertain the sentiments which insinuate a 
much more flattering estimate. Our elegant and 
amusing moralists no doubt copiously describe and cen- 
sure the follies and vices of mankind ; but many of 
these, they maintain, are accidental to the human 
character, rather than a disclosure of intrinsic quali- 
ties. Others do indeed spring radically from the na- 
ture ; but they are only the wild weeds of a virtuous 
soil, Man is still a very dignified and noble being, 
with strong dispositions to all excellence, holding a 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 311 

proud eminence in the ranks of existence, and (if such 
a Being is adverted to) high in the favour of his Crea- 
tor. The measure of virtue in the world vastly ex- 
ceeds that of depravity ; we should not indulge a fa- 
natical rigour in our judgments of mankind ; nor be 
always reverting to an ideal perfection ; nor accustom 
ourselves to contemplate the Almighty always in the 
dark majesty of justice. — None of their speculations 
seem to acknowledge the gloomy fact which the New 
Testament so often asserts or implies, that all men are 
" by nature children of wrath." 

It is quite of course that among sentiments of this 
order, the idea of the redemption of Jesus Christ (if any 
allusion to it should occur,) can but appear with equivo- 
cal import, and " shorn of the beams" which constitute 
the peculiar light of his own revelation. While man 
is not considered as lost, the mind cannot do justice to 
the expedient, or to " the only name under heaven," 
by which he can be redeemed. Accordingly the gift 
of Jesus Christ does not appear to be habitually recol- 
lected as the most illustrious instance of the beneficence 
of God that has come within human knowlelge, and 

It as the fact which has contributed more than all others 
to relieve the oppressive awfulness of the mystery in 
which our world is enveloped. No thankful joy seems 
to awake at the thought of so mighty an interposition, 

; and of him whose sublime appointment it was to under- 
take and accomplish it. When it is difficult to avoid 
making some allusion to him, he is acknowledged 
rather in any of his subordinate characters, than as 
absolutely a Redeemer ; or if the term Redeemer, or, 
our Saviour, is introduced, it is done as with a certain 
inaptitude to pronounce a foreign appellative ; as with 
a somewhat irksome feeling at falling in momentary 
contact with language so specifically of the christian 
school. And it is done in a manner which betrays, 
that the author does not mean all that he feels some 
dubious intimation that such a term should mean. 



312 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OF TASTE 

Jesus Christ is regarded rather as having added to our 
moral advantages, than as having conferred that with- 
out which all the rest were in vain ; rather as having 
made the passage to a happy futurity spmewhat more 
commodious, than as having formed the passage itself 
over what was else an impassable gulf Thus that 
comprehensive sum of blessings, called in the New 
Testament Salvation, or Redemption, is shrunk into a 
comparatively inconsiderable favour, which a less glori- 
ous messenger might have brought, which a less mag- 
nificent language than that dictated by inspiration 
might have described, and which a less costly sacrifice 
might have secured. 

It is consistent with this delusive idea of human 
nature, and these crude, and faint, and narrow con- 
ceptions of the christian economy, that these writers 
commonly represent felicity hereafter as the pure re- 
ward of merit. I believe you will find this, as far as 
any allusions are made to the subject, the prevailing 
opinion through the school of polite literature. You 
will perceive it to be the real opinion of many writers 
who do sometimes advert, in some phrase employed by 
way of respectful ceremony to our national creed, to 
the work or sacrifice of Christ. 

I might remark on the antichristian motives to ac- 
tion which are sanctioned and inspirited by many of 
these authors : I will only notice one, the love of glo- 
ry ; that is, the desire of being distinguished, admired, 
and praised. 

No one will think of such a thing as bringing the 
christian laws in absolute prohibition of our desire to 
possess the favourable opinion of our fellow men. In 
the first place, a material portion of human happiness 
depends on the attachment of relations and friends, and 
it is right for a man to wish for the happiness resulting 
from such attachment. And since the degree in which 
he will obtain it. must depend very much on the higher 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 313 

or lower estimate which these persons entertain of his 
qualities and abilities, it is right for him to wish, while 
he endeavours to deserve, that their estimate may be 
high, in order that he may enjoy a large share of their 
affection. 

In the next place, it is too plain to be worth an 
observation, that if it were possible for a man to desire 
the respect and admiration of mankind purely as a 
mean of giving a greater efficacy to his efforts for their 
welfare, and for the promotion of the cause of heaven, 
while he would be equally gratified that any other 
man, in whose hands this mean would, have exactly 
the same effect, should obtain the admiration instead of 
himself, this would be something eminently more than 
innocent ; it would be the apotheosis of a passion 
which in its ordinary quality deserves no better denom- 
ination than vanity. But where is the example 1 

In the third place, as the Creator has included this 
desire in the essential constitution of our nature, he 
intended its gratification, in some limited degree, to be 
a direct and immediate cause of pleasure. The good 
opinion of mankind, expressed in praise, or indicated 
by any other signs, pleases us by a law of the same 
order as that which constitutes mutual affection a 
pleasure, or that which is the cause that we are gratified 
by music, or the beauties and gales of spring. The in- 
dulgence of this desire is thus authorized, to a certain 
extent, by its appointment to be a source of pleasure. 

But to what extent ? It is notorious that this desire 
has, if I may so express it, an immense voracity. It 
has within itself no natural principle of limitation, 
since it is incapable of being gratified to satiety. A 
whole continent applauding or admiring has not satis- 
fied some men's avarice of what they called glory. To 
what extent, I repeat, may the desire be indulged? 
Evidently not beyond that point where it begins to in- 
troduce its evil accessories, enyy, or ungenerous compe- 
tition, or resentful mortification, or disdainful compari- 
27 



314 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

son, or self-idolatry. But I appeal to each man who 
has deeply reflected on himself, or observed those 
around him, whether this desire under even a consid- 
erably limited degree of indulgence be not very apt to 
introduce some of these accessories ; and whether, in 
order to preclude them from his own mind, he have 
not at times felt it necessary to impose on this desire a 
restraint almost as unqualified as if he had been aiming 
to suppress it altogether. In wishing to prohibit an 
excess of its indulgence, he has perceived that even 
what had seemed to him a small degree has amounted, 
or powerfully tended, to that excess — except when the 
desire has been operating under the kindly and ap- 
proved modification, of seeking to engage the affection 
of relations or a few friends. The measure therefore 
of this passion, compatible with the best condition of 
the mind, will be found to be exceedingly limited. 

Again, the desire cannot be cherished without be- 
coming a motive of action exactly in the degree in 
which it is cherished. Now if the most authoritative 
among a good man's motives of action must be the 
wish to please God, it is evident that the passion which 
supplies another motive, ought not to be allowed in a 
degree that will empower the motive thus put in force 
to contest, in the mind, the supremacy of the pious 
motive. But here, again, I appeal to the reflective man 
of conscience, whether he have not found that the de- 
sire of human applause, indulged in only such a de- 
gree as he had not, for a while, suspected of being im- 
moderate, may be a motive strong enough not only to 
maintain a rivalry \\ ith what should be the supreme 
motive, but absolutely to prevail over it. In each pur- 
suit or performance in which he has excelled, or en- 
deavoured to excel, has he not sometimes been forced 
to observe, with indignant grief, that his thoughts 
much more promptly adverted to h.uman praise, than 
to divine approbation ? And when he has been able 
in some measure to repress the passion, has he not 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 315 

found that a slight stimulus was competent to restore 
its impious ascendency ? — Now what is it that should 
follow from these observations ? What can it be, as a 
general inference, but plainly this, that though the de- 
sire of human applause, if it could be a calm, closely 
limited, and subordinate feeling, would be consistent 
with christian virtue ; yet, since it so mightily tends to 
an excess, destructive of the very essence of that virtue, 
it ought, (excepting in the cases where human estima- 
tion is sought as a mean toward some valuable end,) 
to be opposed and repressed in a manner not much 
LESS general and unconditional than if it were purely 
evil ? The special inference, available to the design 
of this essay, is, that so much of our literature as, on 
the contrary, tends to animate the passion with new 
force, is most pernicious. 

These assertions are certainly in the spirit of the 
New Testament, which, not exacting a total extinction 
of the love of human applause, yet alludes to most of 
its operations with censure, exhibits, probably, no ap- 
proved instance of its indulgence, and abounds with 
emphatically cogent representations, both of its per- 
nicious influence when it predominates, and of its pow- 
erful tendency to acquire the predominance. The hon- 
est disciple of that divine school, being at the same time 
a self-observer, will be convinced that the degree be- 
yond which the passion is not tolerated by the chris- 
tian law, is a degree which it will be sure to reach and 
to exceed in his mind in spite of the most systematical 
opposition. The most resolute and persevering repres- 
sion will still leave so much of this pas&ron as Christi- 
anity will pronounce a fault or a vice^ He will be 
anxious to assemble, in aid of the repressive discipline, 
all the arguments of reason, all striking examples, and 
all the interdictions of the Bible. 

Now I think I cannot be mistaken in asserting, that 
a great majority of our fine writers have gone directly 
counter to any such doctrine and discipline. No advo- 



316 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

cate will venture to deny, that they have commended 
and instigated the love of applause, of fame, of glory, 
or whatever it may be called, in a degree which, if the 
preceding representation be just, places them in point- 
ed hostility to the christian religion. Sometimes, in- 
deed, when it was the planetary hour for high phi- 
losophy, or when they were in a splenetic mood, 
occasioned perhaps by some chagrin of disappointed 
vanity, they have acknowledged, and even very rhe- 
torically exposed, the inanity of this same glory. Most 
of our ingenious authors have, in one place or another, 
been moral or satirical at the expense of what Pope so 
aptly denominates the " fool to fame." They perceived 
the truth, but as the truth did not make them free, they 
were willing after all to dignify a passion to which they 
felt themselves irretrievable slaves. And they have la- 
boured to do it by celebrating, with every splendid 
epithet, the men who were impelled by this passion 
through the career in which they were the idols of 
servile mankind and their own ; by describing glory 
as the best incentive to noble actions, and their worthi- 
est reward ; by placing the temple of virtue (proud sta- 
tion of the goddess) in the situation to be a mere intro- 
duction to that of Fame ; by lamenting that so few, 
and their unfortunate selves not of the number, can 
" climb the steep where that proud temple shines afar :" 
and by intimating a charge of meanness of spirit against 
those, who have no generous ardour to distinguish 
themselves from the crowd, by deeds calculated and 
designed to pitch them aloft in gazing admiration. If 
sometimes the ungracious recollection strikes them, and 
seems likely to strike their readers, that this admiration 
is provokingly capricious and perverse, since men have 
gained it without rightful claims, and lost it without de- 
merit, and since all kinds of fools have offered the incense 
to all kinds of villains, they escape from the disgust and 
from the benefit of this recollection by saying, that it is 
honourable fame that noble spirits seek ; for they despise 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 317 

the ignorant multitude, and seek applause by none but 
worthy actions, and from none but worthy judges. Al- 
most every one of these writers will sometimes, perhaps, 
advert to the approbation of the Supreme Being, as 
what wise and good men will value most ; but such 
an occasional acknowledgment feebly counteracts the 
effect of many glowing sentiments and descriptions of 
a contrary tendency. — If this be a correct animadver- 
sion on our popular fine writers, there can be no ques- 
tion whether they be likely to animate their readers 
with christian motives of action. 

I will remark only on one particular more, namely, 
the culpable license, careless, if not sometimes malig- 
nant, taken by the lighter order of these writers, and 
by some even of the graver, in their manner of ridicu- 
ling the cant and extravagance by which hypocrisy, 
fanaticism, or the peculiarities of a sect or a period, 
may have disgraced or falsified christian doctrines. 
Sometimes, indeed, they have selected and burlesqued 
modes of expression which were not cant, and which 
ignorance and impiety alone would have dared to ridi- 
cule. And often, in exposing to contempt the follies 
of notion or language or manners, by w^hich a christian 
of good taste deplores that the profession of the gospel 
should ever have been deformed, they take not the 
smallest care to preserve a clear separation between 
what taste and sense have a right to explode, and what 
piety bids to reverence. By this criminal carelessness 
(to give it no stronger denomination,) they have fixed 
repulsive and irreverent associations on the evangelical 
truth itself, for which many persons, when afterwards 
they have yielded their faith and afTection to that truth, 
have had cause to wish that certain volumes had gone 
into the fire, instead of coming into their hands. Many 
others, who have not thus become its converts, retain 
the bad impression unabated, and cherish the disgust 
27* 



318 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OF TASTE 

Gay writers ought to know that this is dangerous 
ground. 

I am sorry that this extended censure on works of 
genius and taste could not be prosecuted with a more 
marked application, and with more discriminative refer- 
ences than the continual repetition of the expressions, 
" elegant literature," and " these writers." It might be 
a service of some value to the evangelical cause, if a 
work were written containing a faithful estimate, indi' 
vidually, of the most popular writers of the last century 
and a half, in respect to the important subject of these 
comments ; with formal citations from some of their 
works, and a candid statement of the general tendency 
of others. In an essay like this, it is impossible to 
make an enumeration of names, or pass a judgment, 
except in a very cursory manner, on any particular 
author. Even the several classes of authors, which I 
mentioned some time back, as coming under the accu- 
sation, shall detain you but a short time. 

The Moral Philosophers for the most part seem anx- 
ious to avoid every thing that might render them liable 
to be mistaken for Christian Divines. They regard 
their department as a science complete in itself; and 
they investigate the foundation of morality, define its 
laws, and affix its sanctions, in a manner generally so 
much apart from Christianity, that the reader would 
almost conclude that religion to be another science 
complete in itself* An entire separation, it is true, 
cannot well be preserved ; since Christianity has decided 
some moral questions on which reason was dubious or 

* When it happens sometimes, that a moral topic hardly can be 
disposed of without some recognition of its involving, or being in- 
timately connected with, a theological doctrine, it is curious to no- 
tice, with what an air of indifference, somewhat partaking of con- 
tempt, one of these writers will observe, that that view of the mat- 
ter is the business of the divines, with whose department he does 
not pretend to interfere. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION, 319 

silent ; and since that final retribution, which the New 
Testament has so luminously foreshown, brings evi- 
dently the greatest of sanctions. To make no reference 
in the course of inculcating moral principles, to a judg- 
ment to come, if there be an understood admission that 
it is actually revealed, would look like systematic ir- 
religion. But still it is striking to observe how small 
a portion of the ideas, (relative to this and other points 
of the greatest moral interest,) which distinguish the 
New Testament from other books, many moral philoso- 
phers have thought indispensable to a theory in which 
they professed to include the sum of the duty and inter- 
ests of man. A serious reader is constrained to feel 
that either there is too much in that book, or too little 
in theirs. He will perceive that, in the inspired book, 
the moral principles are intimately interwoven with all 
those doctrines which could not have heeu. known but 
through revelation. He will find also in this superior 
book, a vast number of ideas avowedly designed to in- 
terest the affections in favour of all moral principles and 
virtues. The " quickening spirit," thus breathed among 
what might else be dry and lifeless, is drawn from con- 
siderations of the divine mercy, the compassion of the 
Redeemer, the assurance of aid from heaven in the diffi- 
cult strife to be what the best principles prescribe, the re- 
lationship subsisting between good men on earth and 
those who are departed ; and other kindred topics, quite 
out of the range to which the mere moral preceptors 
appear to hold themselves limited. The system of mor- 
als, as placed in the temperature of such considera- 
tions, has the character and effect of a different zone. 
Thus, while any given virtue, equally prescribed in the 
treatise of the moral philosopher and the christian code, 
would in mere definition be the same in both, the 
manner in which it bears on the heart and conscience 
must be greatly different. 

It is another difference also of momentous conse- 
quencCj if it be found that the christian doctrine de- 



320 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

clares the virtues of a good man not to be the cause of 
his acceptance with God, and that the philosophic mor- 
alists disclaim any other. On the whole it must be 
concluded, that there cannot but be something very- 
defective in that theory of moraUty which makes so 
slight an acknowledgment of the religion of Christ, and 
takes so little of its peculiar character. The philoso- 
phers place the religion in the relation of a diminutive 
satellite to the sphere of moral interests; useful as 
throwing a few rays on that side of it on which the 
solar light of human wisdom could not directly shine ; 
but that it can impart a vital warmth, or claims to be 
acknowledged paramount in dignity and influence, 
some of them seem not to have a suspicion. 

No doubt, innumerable reasonings and conclusions 
may be advanced on moral subjects which shall be 
true on a foundation of their own, equally in the pres- 
ence of the evangelical system and in its absence. In- 
depently of that system, it were easy to illustrate the 
utility of virtue, the dignity which it confers on a ra- 
tional being, its accordance to the " reason and fitness 
of things," its conformity and analogy to much of what 
may be discerned in the order of the universe. It 
would also have been easy to pass from virtue in the 
abstract, into an illustration and enforcement of the 
several distinct virtues, as arranged in a practical sys- 
tem. And if it should be asked, Why may not some 
writers employ their speculations on those parts and 
views of moral truth which are thus independent of the 
gospel, leaving it to other men to christianize the whole 
by the addition of the evangelical relations, motives, 
and conditions 1 — I readily answer, that this may some- 
times very properly be done. An author may render 
good service by demonstrating, for instance, the utihty 
of virtue in general, or of any particular virtue, as shown 
in its effect on the prosperity of states, of smaller commu- 
nities, and of individuals ; in its conduciveness to health, 
mental tranquillity, social confidencej and the like. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 321 

In doing- this, he would expressly take a marked, 
ground, and aim at a specific object. He would not 
(or should not) let it be imagined for a moment that 
such particular views embrace all that is of essential 
interest in the reasons and relations of moral rectitude. 
It would be plainly understood that other considera- 
tions, of the highest importance, recognising, in all our 
obligations to virtue, our relations with God, with a 
spiritual economy, with a future life, are indispensable 
to a complete moral theory. But the charge against 
the moral philosophers is meant to be applied to those 
who, not professing to have any such specific and limit- 
ed scope, but assuming the office of moralist in its most 
comprehensive character, and making themselves re- 
sponsible as teachers of virtue in its whole extent, have 
yet quite forgotten the vital implication of ethical with 
evangelical truth. 

When 1 mention our Historians, it will instantly 
occur to you, that the very foremost names in this 
department import every thing that is deadly to the 
christian religion itself, as a divine communication, and 
therefore lie under a condemnation of a different kind. 
But may not many others, who would have repelled 
the imputation of being enemies to the christian cause, 
be arraigned of having forgotten what was due from 
its friends? The historian intends his work to have 
the efiect of a series of moral estimates of the persons 
whose actions he records ; now, if he believes that a 
Judge of the world will come at length, and pronounce 
on the very characters that his work adjudges, it is one 
of the plainest dictates .of good sense, that ail the 
awards of the historian should be faithfully coincident 
with the judgment which may be expected ultimately 
from that supreme authority. Those distinctions of 
character which the historian applauds as virtues, or 
censures as vices, should be exactly the same qualities, 
which the language already heard from that Judge 



322 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

certifies us that he will approve or condemn. It is 
worse than foolish to erect a literary court of morals 
and human character, of which the maxims, the lan- 
guage, the decision, and the judges, will be equally 
the objects of contempt before Him, whose intelligence 
will instantly distinguish and place in light the right 
and the wrong of all time. What a wretched abase- 
ment will overwhelm on that day some of the pompous 
historians, who were called by others, and accounted 
by themselves, the high authoritative censors of an 
age, and whose verdict was to fix on each name per- 
petual honour or infamy, if they shall find many of 
the questions and the decisions of that tribunal proceed 
on principles which they would have been ashamed to 
apply, or never took the trouble to understand ! How 
will they be confounded, if some of the men whom 
they had extolled, are consigned to ignominy, and some 
that they had despised, are applauded by the voice at 
which the world will tremble and be silent ! But 
such a sad humiliation may, I think, be apprehended 
for many of the historians, by every serious christian 
reader who shall take the hint of this subject along 
with him through their works. He will not seldom 
feel that the writers seem uninformed, while they re- 
mark and decide on actions and characters, that a final 
Lawgiver has come from heaven, or that he will come, 
or on what account he will come, yet once more. 
Their very diction often abjures the plain christian de- 
nominations of good and evil ; nor do I need to recount 
the specious and fallacious terms which they have em- 
ployed in their place. How then can a mind which 
learns to think in their manner, learn at the same 
time to think in his from whom it will, however, be 
found no light matter to have dissented, when his judg- 
ment shall be declared for the last time in this world 1 

The various interesting sets of short Essays, with the 
Spectator and Rambler at their head, must have had a 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. ' 323 

very considerable influence, during a season at least, 
and not yet entirely extinct, on the moral taste of the 
public. Perhaps, however, it is too late in the day for 
any interest to be taken in religious animadversions 
which might with propriety have been ventured upon 
the Spectator, when it was the general and familiar 
favourite with the reading portion of the community.* 
A work of such wide compass, and avowedly assuming 
the office of guardian and teacher of all good principles, 
gave fair opportunities for a christian writer to in- 
troduce, excepting what is strictly termed science, a 
little of every subject affecting the condition and 
happiness of men. Why then was it fated that the 
stupendous circumstance of the redemption by the 

* Within the thirty or forty years antecedent to the date of the 
present edition, and even within the shorter interval since the sUght 
remarks in the text were written, there has been a surprising 
change in the tone of our literature, and in the public taste which 
it both consults and forms. The smooth elegance, the gentle 
graces, the amusing, easy, and not deep current of sentiment, of 
which Addison is our finest example, have come to be regarded as 
languid, and almost insipid ; and the passion is for force, energy, 
bold developement of principles, and every kind of high stimulus. 
This has been the inevitable accompaniment of the prodigious 
commotion in the state of the world, the rousing of the general 
mind from its long lethargy, to an activity and an exertion of 
power which nothing can quell, which is destined to continually 
augmenting operation till the condition of the world be changed. 
This new spirit of our literature is a great advantage gained ; but 
gained at a grievous cost ; for we have in its train an immense 
quantity of affectation : all sorts and sizes of authors must be 
aiming at vigour, point, bold strokes, originality. The consequence 
is, an ample exhibition of contortion, tricks of surprise, paradox, 
headlong dash, factitious fulmination, and turgid inanity. In some 
of the grossest instances, this ape of mental force and freedom 
stares and swaggers, and spouts a half-drunken rant. One won- 
ders to see how much even some of the ablest among the writers 
of the present times have gone into the bad fashion, have discarded 
the masculine simplicity so graceful to intellectual power, and 
spoiled compositions admirable for vigorous thinking by a contin- 
ual affectation, which carries them along in a dashing capering 
sort of style, as if determined that the " march of intellect" shaU 
be a dance to a fiddle. 



324 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OF TASTE 

Messiah, of which the importance is commensurate 
with the whole interests of man, with the value of his 
immortal spirit, with the government of his Creator in 
this world, and with the happiness of eternity, should 
not a few times, in the long course and extensive moral 
jurisdiction of that work, be set forth in the most 
explicit, uncompromising, and solemn manner, in the 
full aspect and importance which it bears in the chris- 
tian revelation, with the directness and emphasis of 
apostolic fidelity 2 Why should, not a few of the most 
peculiar of the doctrines, comprehended in the primary 
one of salvation by the Mediator, have been clothed 
with the fascinating elegance of Addison, from whose 
pen many persons would have received an occasional 
evangelical lesson with incomparably more candour 
than from any professed divine ? A pious and benev- 
olent man, such as the avowed advocate of Christianity 
ought to be, should not have been contented that so 
many thousands of minds as his writings were adapted 
to instruct and to charm, should have been left, for any 
thing that he very unequivocally attempted to the con- 
trary in his most popular works, to end a life which he 
had contributed to refine, acquainted but slightly with 
the grand security of happiness after death. Or if it 
could not be deemed his duty to introduce in a formal 
manner any of the most specifically evangelical sub- 
jects, it might at least have been expected, that some 
of the many serious essays scattered through the Spec- 
tator should have more of a christian strain, more rec- 
ognition of the great oracle, in the speculations con- 
cerning the Deity, and the gravest moral subjects. 
There might, without hazard of symbolizing with the 
dreaded fanaticism of the preceding age, have been 
more assimilation of what may be called, as it now 
stands, a literary fashion of religion, to the spirit of 
the New Testament. From him also, as a kind of 
dictator among the elegant writers of the age, it might 
have been expected that he would set himself, with the 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 325 

same decision and virtuous indignation which he made 
his Cato display against the betrayers of Roman liberty 
and laws, to denounce that ridicule which has wounded 
religion by a careless or by a crafty manner of holding 
up its abuses to scorn : but of this impropriety (to use 
an accommodating term,) the Spectator itself is not 
free from examples. 

Addison wrote a book expressly in defence of the 
religion of Christ ; but to be the dignified advocate of 
a cause, and to be its humble disciple, may be very 
different things. An advocate has a feeling of making 
himself important ; he seems to confer something on 
the cause ; but as a disciple, he must surrender to feel 
littleness, humility, and submission. Self-importance 
might find more to gratify it in becoming the 'patron of 
a beggar, than the servant of a potentate. Addison 
was, moreover, very unfortunate, for any thing like jus- 
tice to genuine Christianity, in the class of persons with 
whom he associated, and among whom he did not hold 
his pre-eminence by any such imperial tenure, as could 
make him careless of the policy of pleasing them by a 
general conformity of sentiment. One can imagine 
with what a perfect storm of ridicule he would have 
been greeted, on entering one of his celebrated coffee- 
houses of wits on the day after he should have pub- 
lished in the Spectator a paper, for instance, on the ne- 
cessity of being devoted to the service of Jesus Christ. 
The friendship of the world ought to be a " pearl of 
great price," for its cost is very serious. 

The powerful and lofty spirit of Johnson was far 
more capable of scorning the ridicule, and defying the 
opposition, of wits and worldlings. And yet his social 
life must have been greatly unfavourable to a deep and 
simple consideration of christian truth, and the cultiva- 
tion of christian sentiment. Might not even his im- 
posing and unchallenged ascendency itself betray him 
to admit, insensibly, an injurious influence on his mind? 
He associated with men of whom many were very leam- 
28 



326 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

edjsome extremely able, but comparatively few made and 
decided profession of piety ; and perhaps a consider- 
able number were such as would in other society have 
shown a strong propensity to irreligion. This, how- 
ever, dared not to appear undisguisedly in Johnson's 
presence ; and it is impossible not to revere the strength 
and noble severity that made it so cautious. But this 
constrained abstinence from overt irreligion had the 
effect of preventing the repugnance of his judgment 
and religious feelings to the frequent society of men 
from whom he would have recoiled, if the real temper 
of their minds, in regard to the most important subjects, 
had been unreservedly forced on his view. Decorum 
toward religion being preserved, he would take no rig- 
orously judicial account of the internal character of 
those who brought so finely into play his mental pow- 
ers and resources, in conversations on literature, moral 
philosophy, and general intelligence ; and who could 
enrich every matter of social argument by their learn- 
ing, their genius, or their knowledge of mankind. 
But if, while every thing unequivocally hostile to Chris- 
tianity was kept silent in his company, there was nev- 
ertheless a latent impiety in possession of the heart, it 
would inevitably, however unobviously, infuse some- 
thing of its spirit into the communications of such men. 
And, through the complacency which he felt in the 
high intellectual intercourse, some infection of the nox- 
ious element would insinuate its way into his own ideas 
and feelings. For it is hardly possible for the strong- 
est and most vigilant mind, under the genial influence 
of eloquence, fancy, novelty, and bright intelligence, 
interchanged in amicable collision, to avoid admitting 
some effluvia (if I may so express it) breathing from 
the most interior quality of such associates, and tending 
to produce an insensible assimilation ; especially if there 
should happen to be, in addition, a conciliating exterior 
of accomplishment, grace, and liberal manners. Thus 
the very predominance by which Johnson could repress 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 327 

the direct irreligfon of statesmen, scholars, wits, and ac- 
complished men of the world, might, by retaining him 
their intimate or frequent associate, subject him to 
meet the influence of that irreligion acting in a man- 
ner too indirect and refined to excite either hostility or 
caution. 

But indeed if his caution were excited, there might 
still be a possibility of self-deception in the case. The 
great achievement and conscious merit of upholding, 
by his authority, a certain standard of good principles 
among such men, and compelling an acquiescence at 
least, wherever he was present, might tend to make 
himself feel .satisfied with that order of sentiments, 
though materially lower than the standard which his 
conscientious judgment must have adopted, if he had 
formed it under the advantage of long and thoughtful 
retirement and exemption from the influence of such 
associates. It would be difficult for him to confess to 
himself that what was high enough for a repressive 
domination over impiety, might yet be below the level 
of true Christianity. It is hard for a man to suspect 
himself deficient in that very thing in which he not 
only excels other men, but mends them. Nothing can 
well be more unfortunate for christian attainments, even 
in point of right judgment, than to be habitually in 
society where a man will feel as if he held a saintly 
eminence of character in merely securing him a decent 
neutrality, or a semblance of slight partial assent, in 
other words a forbearance of hostility, to that divine 
law of faith and morals, which is set up over that so- 
ciety and all mankind, as the grand distinguisher be- 
tween those who are in light and those who are in 
darkness, those who are approved and those who are 
condemned ; and which has been sent on earth with a 
demand, not of this worthless non-aggression, but of 
cordial entire addiction and devoted zeal. 

If there be any truth in the representations which 
make so large a part of this essay, Johnson's continual 



328 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

immersion in what is denominated polite literature, must 
have subjected him to the utmost action and pervasion 
of an influence of which the antichristian effect cannot 
"be neutralized, without a more careful study than we 
have reason to believe he gave, or even had time to 
give, to the doctrine of religion as a distinct independent 
subject. 

It must, however, be admitted that this illustrious 
author, who, though here mentioned only in the class 
of essayists, is to be ranked among the greatest moral 
philosophers, is less at variance with the essentials of 
the christian economy, than the very great majority of 
either of these classes of authors. His speculations tend 
in a far less degree to beguile the approving and ad- 
miring reader into a spirit, which feels repelled in 
estrangement and disgust on turning to the instructions 
of Christ and his apostles ; and he has more explicit 
and solemn references to the grand purpose of human 
life, to a future judgment, and to eternity, than almost 
any other of our elegant moralists has had the piety 
or the courage to make. There is so much that 
most powerfully coincides and co-operates with christian 
truth, that the disciple of Christianity the more regrets 
to meet occasionally a sentiment, respecting, perhaps, 
the rule to judge by in the review of life, the consola- 
tions in death, the effect of repentance, or the terms of 
acceptance with God, which he cannot reconcile with 
the evangelical theory, nor with those principles of 
christian faith in which Johnson avowed his belief In 
such a writer he cannot but deem such deviations a 
matter of grave culpability. 

Omission is his other fault. Though he did intro- 
duce in his serious speculations more distinct allusions 
to religious ideas, than most other moralists, yet he did 
not introduce them so often as may be claimed from a 
writer who frequently carries seriousness to the utmost 
pitch of solemnity. There scarcely ever was an author, 
not formally theological, in whose works a large pro- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 329 

portion of explicit christian sentiment was more requisite 
for a consistent entireness of character, than in the 
moral writings of Johnson. No writer ever more com- 
pletely exposed and blasted the folly and vanity of the 
greatest number of human pursuits. The visage of 
Medusa could not have darted a more fatal glance 
against the tribe of gay triflers, the competitors of am- 
bition, the proud exhibiters in the parade of wealth, the 
rhapsodists on the sufficiency of what they call philoso- 
phy for happiness, the grave consumers of life in useless 
speculations, and every other order of " walkers in a 
vain show." His judicial sentence is directed, as with 
a keen and mephitic blast, on almost all the most fa- 
vourite pursuits of mankind. But it was so much the 
more peculiarly his duty to insist, with fulness and 
emphasis, on that one model of character, that one 
grand employment of life, which is enjoined by heaven, 
and will stand the test of that unshrinking severity of 
judgment, which should be exercised by every one 
who looks forward to the test which he is finally to 
abide. No author has more impressively displayed the 
misery of human life ; he laid himself under so much 
the stronger obligation to unfold most explicitly the only 
effectual consolations, the true scheme of felicity as far 
as it is attainable on earth, and that delightful prospect 
of a better region, which has so often inspired exulta- 
tion in the most melancholy situations. No writer has 
more expressively illustrated the rapidity of time, and 
the shortness of life ; he ought so much the more fully 
to have dwelt on the views of that great futurity at 
which his readers are admonished by the illustration 
that they will speedily arrive. No writer can make 
more poignant reflections on the pains of guilt ; was it 
not indispensable that he should oftener have directed the 
mind suffering this bitterest kind of distress to that great 
sacrifice once offered for sin ? No writer represents 
with more striking, mortifying, humiliating truth the 
failure of human resolutions, and the feebleness of hu- 
28* 



330 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

man efforts, in the contest with corrupt propensity, evil 
habit, and adapted temptation ; why did not this mel- 
ancholy observation and experience prompt a very 
frequent recollection, and emphatical expression of the 
importance of that assistance from on high, without 
which the divine word has so often repeated the warn- 
ing that our labours will fail ? 

In extending the censure to the Poets, it is gratify- 
ing to meet an exception in the most elevated of all 
their tribe. Milton's consecrated genius might harmo- 
niously have mingled with the angels that announced 
the Messiah to be come, or that, on the spot and at the 
moment of his departure, predicted his coming again ; 
might have shamed to silence the muses of paganism ; 
or softened the pains of a christian martyr. Part of 
the poetical works of Young, those of Watts, and of 
Cowper, have placed them among the permanent bene- 
factors of mankind ; as owing to them there is a popu- 
lar poetry in the true spirit of Christianity ; a poetry 
which has imparted, and is destined to impart, the best 
sentiments to innumerable minds. Works of great 
poetical genius that should be thus faithful to true re- 
ligion, might be regarded as trees by the side of that 
" river of the water of life," having in their fruit and 
foliage a virtue to contribute to " the healing of the na- 
tions." — But on the supposition that there were a man 
sufficiently discerning, impartial, and indefatigable for 
a research throughout the general body of our poetical 
literature, it would be curious to see what kind of reli- 
gious system, and what account of the state of man, is 
viewed under moral estimate, and in relation to the 
future destiny, would be afforded by a digested assem- 
blage of all the most marked sentiments, supplied by 
the vast majority of the poets, for such a scheme of 
moral and religious doctrine. — But if it would be ex- 
ceedingly amusing to observe the process and the fan- 
tastic result, it would in the next place be very sad to 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 331 

consider, that these fallacies have been insinuated by 
the charms of poetry into countless thousands of minds, 
with a beguilement that has, first, diverted them from a 
serious attention to the gospel, than confirmed them 
in a habitual dislike of it, and finally operated to be- 
tray some of them to the doom M^hich, beyond the 
grave, awaits the neglect or rejection of the religion of 
Christ. 

You have probably seen Pope cited as a christian 
poet, by some pious authors, whose anxiety to impress 
reluctant genius into an appearance of favouring Chris- 
tianity, has credulously seized on any occasional verse, 
which seemed an echo of the sacred doctrines. No 
reader can exceed me in admiring the discriminative 
thought, the shrewd moral observation, the finished and 
felicitous execution, and the galaxy of poetical beauties, 
which combine to give a peculiar lustre to the writings 
of Pope. But I cannot refuse to perceive, that almost 
every allusion in his lighter works to the names, the 
facts, and the topics, that specially belong to the reli- 
gion of Christ, is in a style and spirit of profane banter ; 
and that, in most of his graver ones, where he meant 
to be dignified, he took the utmost care to divest his 
thoughts of all the mean vulgarity of christian associa- 
tions. " Off', ye profane !" might seem to have been 
his signal to all evangelical ideas, when he began his 
Essay on Man ; and they were obedient, and fled ; for 
if you detach the detail and illustrations, so as to lay 
bare the outline and general principles of the work, it 
will stand confest an elaborate attempt to redeem the 
whole theory of the condition and interests of man, 
both in life and death, from all the explanations im- 
posed on it by an un philosophical revelation from 
heaven. And in the happy riddance of this despised 
though celestial light, it exhibits a sort of moon-light 
vision, of thin impalpable abstractions, at which a 
speculatist may gaze, with a dubious wonder whether 
they be realities or phantoms j but which a practical 



332 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

man will in vain try to seize and turn to account ; and 
which an evangelical man will disdain to accept in ex- 
change for those forms of truth which his religion brings 
to him as real living friends, instructors, and consolers ; 
which present themselves to him, at his return from a 
profitless adventure in that shadowy dreary region, 
with an effect like that of meeting the countenances of 
his affectionate domestic associates, on his awaking 
from the fantastic succession of vain efforts and perplexi- 
ties, among strange objects, incidents, and people, in a 
bewildering dream. — But what deference to Christianity 
was to be expected, when such a man as Bolingbroke 
was the genius whose imparted splendour was to illu- 
minate, and the demigod* whose approbation was to 
crown, the labours which, according to the wish and 
presentiment of the poet, were to conjoin these two 
venerable names in endless fame? 

If it be said for some parts of these dim speculations, 
that though Christianity comes forward as the practical 
dispensation of truth, yet there must be, in remote ab- 
straction behind, some grand, ultimate, elementary 
truths, which this dispensation does not recognise, but 
even intercepts from our view by a system of less re- 
fined elements, in which doctrines of a more contracted, 
palpable, and popular form, of comparatively local pur- 
port and relation, are imposed in substitution for the 
higher and more general and abstracted truths — I an- 
swer. And what did the poet, or " the master of the 
poet and the song," know about those truths, and how 
did they come by their information. 

A serious observer must acknowledge with regret, 
that such a class of productions as novels, in which 
folly has tried to please in a greater number of shapes 
than the poet enumerates in the Paradise of Fools, is 
capable of producing a very considerable effect on the 
moral taste of the community. A large proportion of 

* He is so named somewhere in Pope's Works. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 333 

them however are probably of too slight and insipid a 
consistence to have any more specific counteraction to 
christian principles than that of mere folly in general ; 
excepting indeed that the most flimsy of them will oc- 
casionally contribute their mite of mischief, by alluding 
to a christian profession, in a manner that identifies it 
with the cant by which hypocrites have aped it, or the 
extravagance with which fanatics have inflated or dis- 
torted it. But a great and direct force of counteracting 
influence is emitted from those, which eloquently dis- 
play characters of eminent vigour and virtue, when it 
is a virtue having no basis in religion ; a factitious thing 
resulting from the mixture of dignified pride with gen- 
erous feeling ; or constituted of those philosophical prin- 
ciples which are too often accompanied, in these works, 
by an avowed or strongly intimated contempt of the 
interference of any religion, especially the christian. 
If the case is mended in some of these productions into 
which an awkward religion has found its way, it is 
rather because the characters excite less interest of any 
kind, than because any which they do excite is favour- 
able to religion, No reader is likely to be impressed 
with the dignity of being a christian by seeing, in one 
of these works, an attempt to combine that character 
with the fine gentleman, by means of a most ludicrous 
apparatus of amusements and sacraments, churches and 
theatres, morning-prayers and evening-balls. Nor will 
it perhaps be of any great service to the christian cause, 
that some others of them profess to exemplify and de- 
fend, against the cavils and scorn of infidels, a religion 
of which it does not appear that the writers would 
have discovered the merits, had it not been established 
by law. One may doubt whether any one will be 
more than amused by the venerable priest, who is in- 
troduced probably among libertine lords and giddy 
girls, to maintain the sanctity of terms, and attempt the 
illustration of doctrines, which these well-meaning wri- 
ters do not perceive that the worthy gentleman's col- 



334 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

lege, diocesan, and library, have but very imperfectly 
enabled him to understand. If the reader even wished 
to be more than amused, it is easy to imagine how 
much he would be likely to be instructed and affected, 
by such an illustration or defence of the christian re- 
ligion, as the writer of a fashionable novel would deem 
as graceful or admissible expedient for filling up his 
plot. 

One cannot close such a review of our fine writers 
without melancholy reflections. That cause which will 
raise all its zealous friends to a sublime eminence on 
the last and most solemn day the world has to behold, 
and will make them great for ever, presented its claims 
full in sight of each of these authors in his time. The 
very lowest of those claims could not be less than a 
conscientious solicitude to beware of every thing that 
could in any point injure the sacred cause. This claim 
has been slighted by so many as have lent attraction to 
an order of moral sentiments greatly discordant with 
its principles. And so many are gone into eternity 
under the charge of having employed their genius, as 
the magicians their enchantments against Moses, to 
counteract the Saviour of the world. 

Under what restrictions, then, ought the study 
of polite literature to be conducted? I cannot but 
have foreseen that this question must "return at the 
end of these observations ; and I am sorry to have no 
better answer to give than before, when the question 
came in the way, inconveniently enough, to perplex 
the conclusion to be drawn from the considerations on 
the tendency of the classical literature. Polite litera- 
ture will necessarily continue to be a large department 
of the grand school of intellectual and moral cultiva- 
tion. The evils therefore which it may contain, will 
as certainly affect in some degree the minds of the suc- 
cessive pupils, and teachers also, as the hurtful influ- 
ence of the climate, or of the seasons, will aflfect their 
bodies. To be thus affected, is a part of the destiny 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 335 

under which they are born, in a civilized country. It 
is indispensable to acquire the advantage ; it is inevi- 
table to incur the evil. The means of counteraction 
will amount, it is to be feared, to no more than pallia- 
tives. Nor can these be proposed in any specific meth- 
od. All that I can do, is, to urge on the reader of taste 
the very serious duty of continually recalling to his 
mind, and if he be a parent or preceptor, of cogently 
representing to those he instructs, the real character of 
religion as exhibited in the christian revelation, and the 
reasons which command an inviolable adherence to it. 



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